#this is completely a gamer vent post i’m worked up :’(

[hawkepockets]

SICKENING SIDE EFFECTS of getting good at gw2 NOW as a mirage main like. i didn’t feel the spec slowing and weakening as it happened with each 2022-23 balance patch UNTIL i started doing endgame pve & running scrapper, and now that i’ve eaten from the tree of knowledge, prem feels awful to play. even in open world, no damage, no support, about to have its evasion gutted with this next patch. 5 years of emotional investment in a character and a 🤌🤌🤌PERFECT🤌🤌🤌 triumph in fashion wars (i shant be humble about this. look at him) just to not be able to use him at all in strikes or raids which are the main things i’m doing, feeling silly even bringing him to guild missions and metas. like. every build is completely bled out. but there’s no other class as chaotically mobile and unpredictable and sexyhot as axe mirage so. now what

[lunarrwolf]

prompt #21: “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” *gets killed* “Oh.”

word count: 1,061

summary: you just wanted to play drunk among us

prompt list

—

With the process of moving hundreds of miles away from home and needing to settle into the new apartment, you hadn’t been able to play (let alone stream) Among Us for at least two weeks. The gaming community was riddled with mentions, tags and memes about how long you were away and what in the world it was that kept you at bay from posting or recording. Scrolling through it all one day, you realized it really had been a while. All that time spent unpacking and making sure everything was set really took longer than expected.

It felt like way more than fourteen days passed before finding yourself in the computer chair, systems on and accounts logged into. Out of the many texts received from friends about joining lobbies or multiplayer games while they recorded for their own channel, you were finally able to agree to one sent earlier that morning.

Corpse Husband began drunk run-throughs of the mobile and computer game not too long ago, and you’d been dying to take part ever since watching the first video. It took a few extra days of tying up loose ends in your home state before being able to let him know you could finally do a few rounds, and by then you were raring to have your little astronaut play survivor or murderer. Especially taking into consideration the lack of practice that was able to go into it lately.

“Look who’s finally among us! Miss YT/N herself!” The sound of groans was clear in your headset as the man made his pun, including emotes dropped in by your stream’s chat.

You gave a short laugh. “Oh man, Dream. I didn’t know you longed for my presence that much.”

“Of course I did. Who else am I gonna gang up on?”

“Wow—mental note for game time.” You stated, earning a weak comeback from the faceless YouTuber as he struggled to find something clever. Everyone spent a few more minutes waiting for the last couple of people before Corpse started the countdown, resulting in the group already guessing who was going to be the impostor.

CREWMATE

“Aw, man..” You muttered, disappointed that the revenge on Dream’s joke would have to wait. The only thing left to do was run around, find allies that hopefully wouldn’t kill you (even more so during one of the long tasks) and weed out the fakes.

Thanks to proximity chat being another factor, you took great advantage every time the lights were turned off during the first three rounds. Even with the dark screen, the dimmed figures of the other characters running around were always visible enough for you to avoid them. Not that it mattered when you had no idea who was deemed as either impostor, but you planned on hiding around the ship to figure it out.

It was already the third time someone shut off the power after the last voting session, which fueled a lot of sarcastic remarks from each person you passed about how often it was happening. And with the eject confirmations turned off, it was that much harder to know who was left to expose in the final five. Ethan and Sykkuno were hanging out in the back of the cafeteria this time around, and out of curiosity you trotted up to eavesdrop, being grateful you stole the color black from the deep voiced gamer. Parking yourself in the corner closest to them, you listened closely. “I think Y/N is one of them. I haven’t seen her the whole game and every time I do she’s a freakin’ jet plane.”

After an involuntary gasp, the guys stopped talking, Ethan’s blue space boy now facing your direction along with Sykkuno’s dark green one. “Oh, sorry, did I interrupt something?”

There was a short second of silence before one of them spoke up. “Hey Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you, uh, doing on the vent?”

 You could only stare at the two young adults’ astronauts dumbfounded as it set in that you actually were standing on top of a vent. Clearing your throat, you took another swig of your drink and hovered your hand over the buttons that helped you as impostor in case you had to prove yourself. “I know what this looks like, but I can explain.” You began, taking the silence and still animations as the signal to continue. However, any planned words got caught in your throat, resorting to nothing but a very broken sentence. The small giggles rang so clear in your headphones they caused a pout that surfaced many comments from the chat. “Can’t an astronaut take a nap in the cafe of their spaceship anymore?”

“Maybe in the lobby? That way you don’t get killed.” Sykkuno suggested. Being one of the only ones not having anything pertaining to the drunken aspect of playing tonight, he was completely sober and wanted to keep you from becoming a ghost. A fact that went over your head seeing as—even though you weren’t fully drunk, just a bit tipsy—you were less responsive than usual.

It didn’t even occur that he was trying to help when you went on a tangent about how tiring moving day is when it turns into a moving month, and how you would stay up to binge a new show you found that would have otherwise distracted you from working if you played it during unpacking hours. The lights turned back on while you went on and on for the next few seconds, just for you to be interrupted by Ethan. “Just go to sleep, dude.”

“I refuse, Ethanol.” You countered, grinning when exasperation could be heard from the other end at your nickname for him. A small purple sprite with cat ears ran up beside you, and you all took a second to greet one another before you continued. “I’ll have you know that I am committed to finding the culprit. I’ll sleep when I’m dead, and that’s final.”

“I got you.” The low voice chimed in.

“Shit, wait. H-hold on a second.” Your eyes widened as they snapped to the one standing next to you, turning into slits as they narrowed. “Corpse don’t you dare—”

He did dare. And out of all the profanities and insults swimming through your slightly jumbled brain, the only thing that came out was:

“Oh.”

[miraculouscontent]

*long, deep, exhausted sigh*

So, I just wanna talk real quick about this whole “Adrienette” business in the special. Humor me for a bit.

On a narrative level, the show has designed Marinette and Adrien as endgame. They’re the ones at the forefront, they’re the ones crushing on one side of each other, and they’re the superheroes who protect Paris.

And yet, here I am, having just watched the special, feeling no desire whatsoever for them to be together. This isn’t even about their chemistry for once, no, this about how the show cannot let Marinette make decisions involving their relationship in any way without screwing her over.

She tries to give Adrien gifts? Either someone steals it, a ladybug conveniently flies in to distract her from signing it, or the way she gives it almost leads to the world ending.

She tries to move on because Adrien has openly stated that he’s interested in someone else? Her friends stand up and start loudly arguing about it.

She tries to roleplay - as per Tikki’s advice - in front of an Adrien statue to work up a confession? Oops! The statue was actually Adrien and she just humiliated herself!

She tries to give him up again when Adrien reiterates that he loves another girl? Tikki gives some vague platitude about surprises and the future, which apparently convinces Marinette not to take down her Adrien photos.

She tries a scheme to talk to Adrien? She fails. She tries to just talk to him normally? She fails more.

And now, past three seasons and one special, I’m not even surprised anymore. Any expectation of things going well for Marinette can basically be thrown out the window unless it’s for the sake of shipping fuel and nothing else.

We’re here, post-”Miracle Queen,” and Marinette continues to be a mess around Adrien. She’s still stammering, still freaking out when he touches her, and still getting stuck in situations with him that force her and him together.

People wonder why Marinette still hasn’t changed? They wonder why she can’t move on? I know why.

It’s because she isn’t allowed to, not just because of the narrative/universe/whatever, but because of her surroundings.

I just wanna make it clear that, by “Miracle Queen,” Kagami and Adrien are as close to dating as they’ve ever been, with Kagami kissing Adrien just above the lips in the special, so they’re either actually dating or on such intimate terms that they might as well be.

Marinette has every reason to both want to and try to move on. At this point, her crush can only hurt her. What the special verbalizes as “denial,” I see as Marinette doing whatever she can to only be a friend to Adrien because the girl he loves is not her.

Heck, even if it’s truly a matter of her being in denial, that’s not what the special goes for, because Marinette tells Alya outright, near the beginning, that she needs help seeing Adrien as “just a friend.” Alya vents to Nino about how she wants Marinette to just “be honest with her feelings,” but Marinette is and practically told Alya as much.

Marinette relates dancing with Adrien as “friendly,” along with anything else Alya tries to tease her about. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe it’s because she’s been through it before and has seen signs where there apparently weren’t any. Adrien asked her to dance in “Despair Bear” (at Chloe’s party, which the special incorrectly calls Chloe’s birthday party) but a few episodes pass and Adrien is suddenly asking her for romantic advice to get him with another girl.

Marinette freaks out because every time she tries to be normal, someone mocks her, or Adrien makes a motion to get way too close, and at this point, she has no idea when the next “scheme” will be to force her together with him. Marinette’s anxiety and stuttering are where they are because of how much she’s been through; all the embarrassment and failure that led to no good results, which means that any success at all with Adrien gives her that emotional high (thinly disguised as “love”) for him. I don’t have to wonder why she acts the way she does because I’m seeing it.

When she tries even harder to get to Adrien in Season 3, it’s specifically because of how bad she failed before. It’s, “well, none of these other crazy things I’ve done have worked, so that must mean I have to try even harder!”

Because being in Adrien’s class and being called a “friend” by him is getting her nowhere. He doesn’t spend time with her, he doesn’t know her (at least not enough to know that startling her with a prank won’t help her like him more), and the only forces putting them together are outside ones.

Marinette wants to be friends with Adrien here - she wouldn’t be insisting that everything was friendly between them if she didn’t - but basically no one will let her. Marinette even gave a list of Adrien-related things that she stopped doing nowadays, and what happens?

Alix tries to nail her over something else that she still does, because apparently progress doesn’t matter, and the “joke” that the special keeps trying to hammer home is that Marinette is a wreck who’s still very much into Adrien even though she's trying not to be.

Then, there’s Alya, and I have not been this annoyed with her in a LONG time.

The worst thing to do to someone trying to get over something is to keep bringing it up to them, and Alya was relentless in this special. From start to finish, Alya was doing whatever she could to remind Marinette that her crush is still very much there and it’s agony. Alya is constantly groaning and making faces whenever Marinette denies that there’s anything special about what she did with Adrien, to the point where she pulls a “The Puppeteer 2″ and tries to force them together herself.

And the mocking does not end. I counted at least three instances of Alya using “friend” sarcastically to describe how Marinette felt towards Adrien, and that’s only counting the ones where she used actual airquotes.

At one point during the beginning, Marinette goes to Alya to talk about how she can’t sit next to Adrien. Alya proceeds to say that “there’s still time to get off the plane” and goes on about how “romantic” New York will be. Marinette freaks out at the mental images that enter her head and screams that she “has to get out of here” (not “I need to be moved,” but a clear indication of get me off this plane I DO NOT want this) but when Ms. Mendeleiev asks what’s wrong, Alya doesn’t ask for Marinette to be taken off the plane (which hasn’t taken off yet) and just asks her to be moved elsewhere.

It’s outright uncomfortable how much Alya keeps pressing the issue of Marinette feeling “more than friendly” feelings to Adrien. When Adrien is leaving New York to go back with his father, Alya yells at Marinette and makes it about Marinette’s crush, as if Marinette can’t want Adrien to stay unless she has a crush on him.

The special makes Marinette’s situation all about “do you have a crush on him or not” and it’s awful. It hammers away at Marinette, repeatedly, then continues the typical Treatment of Marinette “humor” by having her walk by all the couples (DJWifi, Myvan, and Julerose) in the beginning of the special while she’s on her way to the bathroom of the plane, then jostles the plane at just the right time for her to be soaked and get toilet paper in her hair.

This special never should have been about Marinette trying to confess to Adrien (and, y’know, forcing her too). That’s not important here. What was important to teach Marinette was, “You have a crush, and that’s okay even if he likes someone else as long as you’re working on it and know what you want to do about it.”

Marinette’s agency is completely stripped away for this entire special because everything is a matter of convenience or by force of the plot. Even by the matter of Chat Noir not being in Paris, it’s technically Marinette’s fault because she tried to convince Adrien’s dad to let Adrien go (the scene of her deciding to do this, by the way, also comes off as if she’s not allowed to want this for him and be just his friend). The show doesn’t acknowledge it because it can’t, but the implications are there.

When Marinette suffers, it’s most likely because of Adrien, whether it’s his fault or just the stars aligning to form a middle finger at her. No matter what she tries to do, fate will work against her.

But here’s the special, insisting that they’re “made for each other,” pointing it out more than once, verbally, by one of the characters.

Here’s the tea, honey: if Marinette and Adrien were really made for each other, then I wouldn’t have to be told that they are.

The more that I’m told, the less I actually believe it, and this special comes nowhere close to making me believe it.

Instead of showing me that they should be together, all this special does is find any contrived situation it can to force them to interact, without realizing that all it’s doing is proving that they shouldn’t be together specifically because the interaction needs to be forced. If Adrienette was a ship I wanted to consider worthy of being endgame, the special wouldn’t need to shove them together needlessly.

It wouldn’t need to have their airplane seats happen to be right next to each other.

It wouldn’t need them to happen to wake up before everyone else to watch the clouds.

It wouldn’t need the two sets of automatic doors to stop working to trap them in the area in-between, twice.

It wouldn’t need them to happen to stumble into the same room together so someone can comment on how they’re, again, “made for each other.”

It wouldn’t need the magic hot dog they eat to be the one that happens to send them up in the air so they can dance together.

And it especially wouldn’t need the contrived moments of Marinette accidentally forcing her seat back so Adrien falls on top of her, or the plane jostling at just the right time to force her against him, or her and Adrien touching hands (ala “Gamer”) before she looks away in embarrassment.

Heck, I don’t even like Adrien, but with how his and Kagami’s relationship seems to be going, I’m disgusted for him too when Nino is going full-force on trying to get Adrien to notice Marinette. Adrien has no idea that any of this is going on and is just being strung along with all of it, whereas Marinette is stuck along for the ride whether she likes it or not.

People can have whatever opinion of Lukanette they want, but one person who didn’t make things worse for her was Luka himself. He shows up briefly in the opening, giving her a ride on his bike to catch up with the bus that’s taking the class to the airport. When Marinette worries that they won’t make it, Luka insists that they will because he knows how important the trip is for her. Marinette asks if he’s referring to Adrien and nervously tries to insists that she and Adrien are just friends and that’s all she sees Adrien as.

But Luka doesn’t mock her, nor laugh at her for it, because he doesn’t have to and he gets it. Unlike people who constantly try to force Marinette’s hand, Luka lets her figure things out on her own.

And when they finally come to a stop next to the bus, he doesn’t put any emphasis on Adrien. All he tells Marinette is that the importance of the trip is for her to get some clarity.

That is the closest thing to what I wanted (and just emphasizes how much I adore Luka and how refreshing his interactions with Marinette are), but it’s the farthest thing from what she actually gets.

How am I supposed to believe that Marinette and Adrien have a genuine relationship deserving of endgame when her feelings are constantly being forced in one direction? How am I supposed to believe anything about them when it’s not natural? How am I supposed to believe that this is the couple that’s “made for each other” when the show is so desperate to make me believe it that they’ll say it outright?

Because, obviously, I don’t believe any of that, and all this special has done is make my disdain for the love square even stronger.

That’s a failing grade if I’ve ever seen one. What a waste.

[xxrat--punkxx]

JUMPING ON THIS BAND WAGGON

Ok here’s my 2020, tw//mentions of suicide and abuse

(Strong start lmao) 2020 sucked ass lemmi tell ya. This year was a fucking train wreck from the start, ur hay I got character development so who cares. Well let’s start with a review, bad things first.

Yall remember when everyone was scared shields of COVID?. Lol. But that’s stating the obvious. When we went into lockdown I was first like fuck yeah summer lol, but then the threat of ‘staying home for the rest of the year’ set in, bing in my first year of sixth form I really understand the stakes of exams next year. So having to stay home for the rest of the year freaked me the fuck out. I literally couldent cope, having to do all classes online was fucking hell, they were never zoom classes either, just ‘lmao do the work and hand it in’ which was near impossible for me. I was also in the constant ‘oh no I’m so stressed but I will do NOTHING about this lmao~’. As the days turned to weeks and inevitably MONTHS, my mental health said buckle up bitches. Days were spent sitting in my room on my phone doing NOTHING, meanwhile this perpetual notion of stress played in my head yet there I sat not having the will or motion to move.

Then my parents got involved. Now THATS when shit went from pretty crummy to awful, now I was living with them constantly I was able to see who they really were with no real filter. And oh god do I have issues, I didn’t even fucking know. Every day was an argument, my mom was the worst, the MANIPULATION, the constant ‘you're tearing this family apart’ or ‘so I’m the problem?’ Or the fucking indecent playing the victim. And I all only just realised, that they have been doing this ALL MY LIFE. Dad got involved but he was just physically violent, only twice tho. The worst part was my work, admittedly yes, I didn’t do everything I was given, but I tried, I really did with what little motivation I had. But with just one ‘oh your daughter hasn’t handed in this work’ I was a ‘lazy, good for nothing failure’ to quote ‘who will never go anywhere in life’ so I’d spend the rest of the day crying while they play the victim bury saupying I was abusing their love and just using them for money. But the next day be like ‘oh I’m so proud of you you're doing so well’ having that statement being completely unrelated to the previous events. This was constant. So that’s that story. I won’t talk much about Black Lives Matter because we all know about how that went. But it really affected me, I found myself crying over the victims multiple times. And the lack of support for the movement my peers or family showed made it fucking worse. Crying was a common occurrence for me now, mental health really taking a nosedive, being too scared to call myself ‘depressed’ or ‘mentally ill’ to any extent because I know I’m faking it and just want validation. That was also constant. Fun times huh.

BUT IT GETS WORSE 🥲, then I had to go back to school, awful to fucking abhorrent now. Year two of sixth form fun right? Sure, if u take away the ‘no free time period’ or the wanting to kill mystery for literally a whole 3 weeks. That was my lowest peak. Ever. I’ve never wanted to kill myself before then, don’t like that feeling. Shocker huh. That mixed with the constant anxiety of nothing is right anymore and also needing to succeed at school all made one healthy dose of ‘.exe has stopped working’ juice. Yet I played the fool, acting happy as if nothing had happened, or was happening at least, and venting by imagining scenes in my head with fictional characters lmao. Telling myself ’u can’t kill yourself because u don’t deserve too and ur just asking for attraction’. Then midterms happened blah blah blah, stress but I’m numb to it now that whole story.

But that’s not to say there wasn’t a silver lining.

Onto the good things finally, yes the year was probably one of the worst years I’ve been through in my life it did not go without its positives. For example early this year I got into borderlands properly, I finally explored the fandom and had a look at what it was like. Albeit a slow process considering I was still predominantly on Instagram at the time, and finding a community of a fandom on there is impossible. I started browsing Pinterest or the Internet for images that would link to my favourite characters, Who were to no ones surprise is the calypso twins. Pinterest led me to artworks and artworks led me to the infamous Lazulizard. Who I cherish all my being. Three weeks later after looking at her entire tumblr blog and stalking her of pretty much all her content (sorry for that by the way) I found border-spam. By this point I didn’t have tumblr and I had no intention of getting it seeing as an ongoing war I’ve had with myself since 2012, declaring I will be the bigger man and never get tumblr, which in hindsight was an awful mindset. Seeing as tumblr is probably one of my favourite places on Earth right now. But after also stalking border spams account, again sorry, and starving her of any content she’d ever posted. I was happy that this fandom although as niche as it is was actually getting content. At the time spam and lazu were absolute gods to me. Being the sole producer of a fandom I probably wasn’t even in properly, having both impeccable writing and impeccable art like good God. I would often think ‘wow wouldn’t it be incredible if I actually got to talk to them one day’, now look at me I’m doing commissions for both of them good God. And to be short joining tumblr felt like a fever dream and it’s probably the greatest thing I could’ve done this year, my parents are wrong, talking to strangers is amazing.

Something notable of mention this year as I actually got to figure out who I am as a person, I was able to find my own style and to find my interests, specifically in what I liked in terms of clothing. I thought I was LOL 2012 goth hipster but no apparently I’m manic Pixie dream girl. Going from pink is the ugliest colour in the world to having it be the only colour I will ever wear. I made some pretty big choices this year like cutting pretty much all of my hair off and dying it for the first time. Thanks strict parents for only letting me do that one now. But like I said I went to a character Ark and you know what I like it. I also played BioShock fallout and horizon zero dawn for the first time this year starting to really feel like a proper epic gamer, good lord kill me, and falling in love with all of them almost immediately. I also figured out on a plant mum and I’m into vulture culture although my parents have to disagree with that one. Asking to buy an Horse and fox skull somehow scared them a little bit can’t seem to figure out why lmao.

So a conclusion, Fuck you 2020 you made me miss two comic cons and I will never forgive you for that shit I am SO mad. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt you did make me meet some absolutely incredible people who I consider my friends, despite going against every single Internet safety law I was ever taught as a child. But you know what who gives a flying shit I love you guys. So that’s what I wanted to say. I want to say thank you to everyone on here and everyone is following me or even interacted me with on that matter. You mean the world to me and I really fucking mean it. Are you going to be nothing but amazing ever since I walked onto this fucking hell hole. And what I go through all of this bullshit again if it means I ended up here? You know what I think I just might. So again I thank you and I hope your year didn’t go as badly as mine, and fuck it bring on whatever the fucks next!

Honourable mention of this year was The time Elisa actually complimented me and I cried a little bit and had a panic attack but you know that’s for another day

🥺💕

[mysweetgirl2-love]

Livestream~ (corpse_husband x reader)

Alright, I’ve skipped ahead a few prompts because I’ve been just too excited to write out this idea and I was falling behind... so I will be going back, but I’ve skipped to my day 9 prompt. Slight (SLIGHT) exhibition. To reiterate the title, this is a oneshot about you and Corpse. I want to just say that this Corpse is him as a character and not him as a person. Think of a “fanon” version of some sorts. I know that the real Corpse is a very private person (obviously) and I would hate for him to be uncomfortable if he were to ever find this. I am really just writing this for comfort and the enjoyment of others. So, without further ado, enjoy!

Word Count: 5,958

Day 9 - Exhibition (Implied)

“Yo! YO! It’s Corpse! It’s fucking Corpse, holy shit-“

“What? Literally how?”

“I- fucking- I saw you legit go into electrical with pewds, leave, for me to then go up and find his body right next to the vent.”

“He was doing the upload task, I think, cuz’ I left him there when he was alive. You definitely self-reported.”

“Toast, you gotta believe me, it’s fucking Corpse.”

The arguments while playing this game were some of the most frustrating and yet exciting conversations you’d had in ages. Especially when it came down to the final two. That was the jackpot.

“Ah… nah, Fable, you’ve been super sus this entire round. There’s no way you did card swipe that quickly-“

“WHAT?!”

The two dings from your headset indicated that the remaining players had voted which only left you. Since Toast didn’t believe you, Corpse had this round in the bag. God. Damnit.

“Fucking- Fine. Thank god for your detective skills, Toast,” You grumbled bitterly, pouting on camera as you voted for the black avatar. Corpse’s avatar.

“You’re just mad that I figured you out..” The streamer teased, you rolling your eyes in response to his unmatched “knowledge.”

“Yeah, yeah, totally… Corpse is just too fucking good at this game, I swear to god,” You continued, definitely a little irritated that the match turned on you so fast.

It didn’t help when all you could do was helplessly watch from the other side of the screen as your purple avatar launched out into space. Oh well, it was over.

“Heh… I’m just glad you admit it,” The deep voice filled your headphones making you roll your eyes.

The screen suddenly darkened, a red gleam appearing as two characters stood next to one another. Spedicey and, who would’ve guessed, Corpse. Shocking.

“What?!” Toast exclaims.

“I can’t BELIEVE you didn’t think it was him!” Lily speaks up.

“You’re a fuckin’ idiot, Toast,” Felix almost groans, sounding slightly annoyed.

“Seriously…” You comment, smirking slightly at the groan of confusion from the man in question.

“What? Fable, you were so sus that entire round!” Toast stressed, your headphones filling with laughter as you clicked to play again.

“What do you mean?! I Iegit just scanned my card and you’re trying to call me on it! For NO good reason!” You retorted, wanting to facepalm so hard.

“I didn’t think you could do it that fast!” He yelled back, “I thought you were faking it, there was no way!”

“The only one who really struggles with card swipe here is Corpse,“ Jack cut in, you erupting in laughter at his words.

“What?- Uh- Come on, don’t do me like that…” He essentially growled into the mic, your arms erupting with goosebumps at the sound of him once again.

“That’s not true either! Jack, you know how hard card swipe is!” Valkarae stood up for the deep spoken imposter, “…but you guys both won anyway. So, whatever…”

You all simply laughed along with one another at that, the frustration fading as you mentally prepared yourself for another round of this thought-provoking game. Or… so you thought.

“Hey, can we actually hold off for a second? I need to use the bathroom-“ Lily asked, you smiling at how gentle her voice always was.

A stark contrast to the one that followed.

“Yeah, same here. Gamer bladder,” Corpse followed.

You shook your head at the later comment, clearing your throat as before leaning in towards your mic, “So, 5 minute break then?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds good!”

“Sure, I’ll just be here.”

Felix, Rae, and Jack responded.

“…Sykunno?” You asked, having not heard his voice in awhile.

“He left to use the bathroom after he finished his tasks in the last round, texted me saying something about getting a snack,” Toast replied for him, you nodding to no one in particular but your chat.

“Got it,” You pressed the mute button for discord and turned to your face cam, “Guess I’ll run to the restroom as well, stay tuned!”

You clicked a few things to allow an ad to run across your stream, labeling it for around four minutes before reaching for your headphones. You placed them on your desk and sighed, leaning back in your chair.

You heard the door in the hallway open, smiling gently to yourself before standing from the chair. You turned towards your own closed door, taking the appropriate amount of steps to open it before peaking around the doorway.

“Hm…” You walked out slightly, turning towards the closed bathroom door and smirking before creeping out of your room and over to his.

Corpse’s room. Your boyfriend.

You and Corpse had started seeing each other a month or two into quarantine during the pandemic. Having known each other a year or two from both of your professions bringing you together under the circumstances, it seemed appropriate.

He was a real-life horror story teller, taking people’s information by email and anonymously telling their tales. You? You told mythologies of all kinds through your own renditions of the stories with art. You also managed to make the stories more light hearted and funny with a few jokes now and then, and people seemed to appreciate the humor you found in some of the topics.

Your channel name had always been Fantasized Fables, a little odd but it got your content across. Since your channel hit, your name was no secret but people liked calling you Fable.

You honestly thought it made you sound a lot more badass than you actually were.

Either way, somehow you got connect through a couple of friends and instantly clicked. Corpse was… well, Corpse. You didn’t know that you’d helped him so much when he actually told you what was going on. The endless nights where you would both be up at an ungodly hour and just dm-ing one another. It started after a few nights you both saw each other online, quickly progressing into something much bigger than that.

It got deep all the time. You both had so many thoughts about life and each other’s and your own… you felt so safe when telling this faceless internet friend all your deepest, darkest thoughts. But, you knew Corpse had more. He always told you more, you almost wanted more to comfort him over. The feelings started to fester and grow… there was no stopping how you felt about him.

The day you two actually met was never going to be forgotten, by either of you. It was unintentional, almost straight from a movie. You had, at this point, exchanged contact information and had been now calling for the majority of May. Not to mention, you both found out you lived in SoCal, only progressing  On this particular afternoon, you texted him that you were going on a coffee run to Starbucks… him saying he was going out for the first time as well.

Masked up and muffled, you of course could tell it was his voice from across the street. The slightly amplified “oh fuck” was the biggest giveaway you could’ve imagined. Your eyes looking up to find a man, dressed in complete black, chains and earrings, shaggy black hair- there was so doubt in your mind.

You called his name, his eyes looking up to find yours across the way… traffic laws weren’t going to stop the saint up to him and into his arms. A big, long, well-deserved embraced you knew the both of you needed. He had always been so kind… and gentle… him being physically there was just so… relieving.

The rest is history, and you honestly moved into his apartment as quickly as you could. You couldn’t stand him living alone like that anymore, and he obviously let you in without a second thought.

You both were extremely happy to have each other, and it just kept getting better from there.

You gently shut the door behind you, creeping over to his setup and sliding into his chair, humming softly as you watched the endless chat messages buildup along the screen and peering at the number of viewers he had now achieved.

JEEEZUS christ, 200k?! That’s insane! You thought, widening your eyes at the number on the screen.

Your streams only ever reached 90k, which was a lot more than you had expected. The number was slowly growing now, though… ever since Corpse blew up on tiktok for just posting videos of his hands.

Wild.

You clicked through a few comments, watching super comments flash along the chat as well as mods trying to attempt to get slow chat to work. You couldn’t help but slightly laugh at the struggle, turning back towards the game as a few of the avatars began bouncing around with one another. People were getting back to the game.

You were about to shift around in his seat, reaching for the keyboard to type something in game when two larger hands came gently down on your shoulders. They pushed you gently down against the chair, causing it to lean back with your body. A face moved next to your ear, lips grazing against the skin.

“Whattup Baby?~” That low voice growled, you gently flinching at the rumbling next to your ear.

You turned to find Corpse grinning down at you, his hands easing up off your body and reaching for your face. His right hand came in contact with your cheek, gently squeezing against it as he slowly walked around the chair and crouched down. To be right beneath your eye level.

“Hi..” You hummed, leaning over to press your lips against his forehead before leaning back to look in his maroon-like eyes.

“Why’re you in my chair? You need to get back to your own stream, silly~” He hummed, beginning to stand as he reached for your arm to pull you out of the chair.

You grinned, your head falling back begrudgingly as he easily pulled you from the comfortable seat.

“Wait…! I just wanted to see you…” You lightly whined, him chuckling in response as you stood on your two feet. Him replacing the spot where you had sat.

“Uhuh… and why’s that?” He teased lightly, you couldn’t help but scoff gently while your heart rate increased. He always had that effect on you.

“Well, I mean… I wanted to both congratulate and bother you about your… fucking imposter round-“ He erupted in laughter, you grinning along with him with a simple eye roll, “hey! Let me finish, it was a good round, I’ll give you that… but you threw me under the bus while doing it…! For no reason!”

He raised his brow lightly, his laughter coming to a soft chuckle as he shrugged, “I mean, I gotta keep my title as ‘too fucking good at imposter.’ Sorry, princess…”

You playfully glared in his direction, a stupid smirk spreading across his face. Your lower lip jutted out from your upper one, crossing your arms as you simply pouted in response. He huffed in response, his smirk turning to more of a smile as he reached back out for you.

“C’mere…” He grumbled, his hand grabbing your arm as he pulled you back down to the chair.

“Wait- Ah!” You almost fell against him, barely able to catch yourself against the arm rests on his chair. You looked up, slightly panicked from the sudden fall, to find Corpse smirking right back.

“Wait for what? You’re not ready for affection?” He asked softly, his hand reaching up to push a few loose strands of hair behind your ear.

“N-No, that’s not it…” You mumbled, letting your gaze fall to his chest, seeing the definition of his body through his baggy sweater.

You felt fingers press against the underside of your chin, pushing your face up to look back towards him. You felt your face flush in embarrassment, smiling nervously as his smirk had never faltered.

“You don’t look very sure of yourself…” he whispered to you.

You gently bit at the inside cheek, shrugging quickly, “C-Cuz’ I’m not…”

He chuckled deeply, leaning in slightly as he grabbed you by the lips, gently humming against your mouth as his hands gripped your sides.

You whimpered softly against him, beginning to kiss back as you readjusted yourself in his lap. You quietly wrapped your arms around the back of his neck as you leaned against him.

He chuckled softly, moving his lips against yours as his hands gently slipped up beneath the sides of your shirt and lovingly stroked at your now exposed skin.

“God, you’re so beautiful…” he whispered against you, catching your lips quickly as he continued, “You’re too perfect, fuck… too fucking perfect…”

“Corpse, I-..” You kissed him again, one of your hands reaching up towards his head as you tangled your fingers into the back of his hair.

He hummed against your mouth, squeezing your sides gently as his smily broke out into a grin. The tip of his nose pressed against yours as he sighed, “Yes, princess?~”

“Careful, we need to get back to the game…” You whispered, growing a little nervous as he chuckled.

“They can wait…” He sighed, leaning back in to press his lips back to yours, kissing you deeply once again.

You squeaked lightly, timid as ever before you kissed back. You felt his teeth grazing against your lower lip, gently nipping at the skin. You couldn’t help but slightly moan, pulling away from your lips as he trailed light kisses down your chin and along your jaw.

He was going for your neck, getting there before you could express any protest. You sighed loudly as his lips connected to the skin right below your ear, gently growling against you as you felt a slight wet sensation lick against your earlobe. You shivered, the side of your face falling to the top of his head as he continued his attack on your neck.

“Fuck, Corpse~”

“God, you sound so beautiful baby… you keep acting like this and after the stream? I’ll have no choice but to-“

The desk behind you started vibrating in loud, long buzzes. Both of you freezing in your spots as you turned over your shoulder to find Corpse’s phone lighting up with a phone call.

You quirked your brow, “Who’d be calling you this early in the morning?”

It was 12 pm, you both had woken up at 10 am to actually get ready in time to stream. It wasn’t early for the world, but it was early for this apartment.

“I don’t know… weird,” He leaned forward in his chair, you holding tight against his chest as he grabbed the phone and brought it towards the two of you.

You both looked down at the contact name on the screen, your eyes widening at the name that read.

“Why- hm…” Corpse quickly swiped to answer the call, holding the speaker up to his ear, “Hey Rae, everything okay-“

He stopped suddenly mid sentence, his eyes widening as his cheeks lit up in a bright red. It had to have been the most embarrassed you’d ever seen him, his eyes falling to yours as you read the panic within them.

“R-Right- shit… s-sorry- I-I’ll turn it down now… bye,“ He quickly brought the phone away, immediately hanging up as his eyes flashed towards the chat function on his stream.

“Is… Is everything okay…?” You asked hesitantly, leaning over slightly to read for yourself what people had to say. Did something happen in chat while you guys were preoccupied?

Corpse didn’t respond, his eyes just scanned what the letters read on screen. You frowned, you confusion growing by the second. He hit a button on the keyboard, did he just unmute?

A strained laugh left his mouth, falling back in the chair with you still in his arms. His eyes found yours, his lips slowly turning to a grin before he laughed one of the hardest laughs you had yet to hear from him.

Your eyes widened, completely baffled at this point.

“Corpse, please- What happened?”

“We- We- AHA! We were unmuted!! That ENTIRE time!” He cackled, his hand landing on his chest to almost support him in some way.

You, on the other hand, went from complete befuddlement to absolute humiliation. There was no way THAT was just heard by hundreds upon thousands of people. No fucking way.

“Wh-What??” You began to panic, reaching for his broad shoulders and gently holding onto them, “Wh-What are you even t-talking about?!”

He gently gripped onto you in return, readjusting you against him as he held you there. His laughter died down before he leaned forward and pressed a kiss against your nose.

You both were open that you were in a relationship, people knew… but, that doesn’t mean you necessarily wanted them to hear..

“Hey, baby, don’t worry… it could’ve been a lot worse… We’re fine~” he reassured, your brow still tensed from your worry. You knew the worst had already happened when he blew up, but how would they use his voice in that kind of tone…

You didn’t want to think about it too much. Not jealous, more just… weirded out. Who knew how people would use your voice in that tone either? You didn’t dwell on it.

“Ah, o-okay… yeah, nothing we need to worry about now,” You nodded with him, his gentle features turning to a warm smile. He brought his hand up to your cheek, his thumb gently swiping across your skin as he hummed.

“Mhm, all is fine… I promise,” He mumbled to you, leaning in softly to press his lips back against your forehead.

You sighed, pausing against him for a moment before leaning away, “Well… p-probably shouldn’t keep them waiting m-much longer…”

Corpse raised his brow gently smiling sadly in agreement with a slight nod. He gently reached for your hips once again, holding them gently as he helped hoist you back onto your two feet. You yelped softly as you let yourself be lifted, extending your two legs to meet the floor.

You stood still for a moment, your eyes meeting his as you timidly smiled, “S-Sorry about the mic thing… I should’ve stayed in my stream.”

You nervously laughed, his smile never faltering as yours broke out into a grin. Your slight guilt written all over your features.

“No, no, you’re totally fine… don’t apologize,” He hummed, his thumbs gently pressing against your hips as he kept reassuring.

“Okay, haha… now we’ll never forget to check our mics,” You winked softly, your hands grabbing onto his larger ones and squeezing them gently in return.

“Haha… never,” He nodded softly, tilting his head gently to the side as he simply watched you.

You sighed, begrudgingly pulling his hands from your hips as you took a small step away. You gently bounced on the balls of your feet, awkwardly putting your hands together behind your back.

“Hm… well! I- uh… will see you in game…” You smiled, his body turning in his chair as he leaned his chin against two of his fingers that you had freshly reapplied black nail polish that night before.

His brow raised quizzically at you, the damn smirk playing at his lips once again. His fingers flexed slightly, his hands following the motion. You could see the veins running down his wrist from where you stood.

He briefly chuckled, “Yeah… I’ll see you there, baby…”

With that, he turned back towards his screen while you didn’t hesitate towards the door. You walked over and grabbed the handle, briefly turning back to the darkened man on the screen, clicking away at the bursts of notifications he was getting from discord.

Oops.

“I love you-“ You flushed, his eyes pulling away from his screen to find you in the doorway. You could see the tint of pink along his cheeks in the darkness of the room.

“…I love you too. Hurry though, Rae is flipping out-“ He laughed, you not wasting a second more to close the door and bound back over to your recording room.

You shut the door behind you, looking up towards your brightened monitor and feeling your breath catch in your chest. You could see your chat blowing up from here, your phone lighting up with MULTIPLE notifications… God, what an unfortunate mistake for Corpse to have made.

You quicken your pace back to your chair, sliding in and putting your headphones back atop of your head. Your camera had come back on in the time you were gone, giving the device a nervous grin before turning towards the game.

“S-Sorry guys, didn’t mean to take that long- uhm…” Your eyes scanned over the chat, not surprised to find it full of caps-locked comments screaming about what happened on Corpse’s stream.

You sighed nervously, your eyes now finding your discord application notifying you that you had… almost fifty notifications?! You mentally had to roll your eyes, quickly turning back towards the camera with a sheepish smile.

“I- uh… I have to go for another minute- B-Be right back!” You laughed, turning on another ad before mentally cursing at yourself. God damnit- your eyes scanned over the viewers on your stream.

What the shit- when did I get 30k viewers?! What the hell?! Of course this is when your viewers decide to spike.

You groaned to yourself, your head falling to your hand as the other reached for your mouse. You clicked to your discord, slowly… but surely, un-deafened your mic.

“OH. MY. GOD. You FUCKING dumbass!” Rae yelled as soon as you unmuted, flinching at the pitch to her tone. It felt like you were being scolded.

“What?! I can’t show my girlfriend some love?!” Corpse replied, not yelling but a definite inflection in his tone.

“No! Nothing wrong with that! But CHECK your MIC next time!!” She laughed loudly. Oh my god.

“Jesus Christ, dude… or at least lower the sensitivity significantly…” Jack spoke up, almost sounding disappointed.

“Ey, welcome back, Fable-“ Felix spoke up, the cheeky grin evident in his tone.

What a fucking asshole-

“FABLE!”

“Oh my god-“

“You guys can’t wait til after stream?!”

“Wait, what am I joining into…?” A new voice intervened, interrupting Rae, Toast, and Lily.

Charlie, what a man, coming in at the worst time.

“H-Hey Charlie…” You spoke up in a greeting.

“Wha- Wait! Answer the question, Fable!” Lily squealed, a groan leaving your mouth as you fell towards your mic.

“I’m sorry! I-I really didn’t mean for it to happen! I had no clue-“

“Yeah, wait, this isn’t on Fable. She just went to go visit Corpse in the other room, guys, chill…” Felix actually stuck up for you, your face lifting in surprise as his words.

“Uh- yeah, actually, I guess that’s fair,” Jack commented, you nervously laughing in response.

“I… am so sorry to all of you,” You apologized softly, a gentle chorus of laughs following your meek apology.

“No, no, no, you’re so fine. You guys weren’t trying to broadcast whatever… that was…” Sykunno hummed awkwardly, you laughing lightly at his uncertainty.

“It was a poor mistake on my part, I’m sorry, Fable…” Corpse spoke up, you grinning at the sound of his voice.

“N-No worries… hey, we already went over this in person. Can we get back to the game?” You grumbled, another fit of laughter through the group at your excusing of the situation.

“Ahaha, yeah let’s get back into it,” Toast replied, the sound of his mouse clicking lightly being heard in the call.

You sighed, deafening yourself once again and turning back on your stream, “Hey everyone, yep… yep, everything’s fine. No worries, I promise, haha. We took a break for a little longer than expected, but we’re back!”

You un-deafened and were met with sound of a very very confused Charlie, “Wait… so… no one’s going to explain to me what happened?”

You all erupted into loud laughter, you falling back slightly in your chair as you cackled. The first voice to come back was Rae, shockingly.

“Don’t worry, Charlie… we’ll tell you later,” She snickered, you laughing along as you came back to your keyboard.

“So… we can start now, though?” Toast spoke up once again.

You began to give confirmations of “yes” with soft ‘yeah’s and ‘mhm’s. Lazy, but it got the point across.

“Cool, starting the next round…” He clicked play again and the countdown began.

“Alright, everyone, remember to MUTE your mics!” Jack spoke up, you rolling your eyes in response as Corpse’s laugh raised above the rest.

“Will do. Thanks,” He chuckled, a louder laugh sounding through the call once again from all mics.

Your screen turned dark, the red avatar of the Among Us character moving to shush you from the screen. You sighed, watching it turn dark again.

“Yeah- yeah, you’re welcome!” Jack played along, grinning softly at the joke as the screen began lighting up once against.

Your screen displayed your avatar next to Corpse’s, the bright red letters of “Imposter” reading across the computer. You raised your eyebrows, making sure you were completely muted on call before chuckling.

“Oh… Hell yeah. Let’s go…”

[indigoh4ze]

This is long. Sorry in advance.

girl said I could vent so i’m going to. 😐 Gosh okay so I have this friend that’s WEVE been friends for four years and we just met recently too, she’s my online friend & im also way better friends with her other friend which is also my online friend I just met them at the same time. We will call annoying girl Tina and not annoying girl Kimchi. Well Kimchi & I have mutual feelings about HOW ANNOYING TINA IS I know I use tumblr but this whore cannot get out of like black floral prints, weed 420, PINTEREST QUOTES! She’s ALSO such a pick me girl and I am going to be ruthless because she ignites so much anger IN ME! DUKAS okay it’s sooo obvious that I don’t care about half the things she tells me. I DONT TRY TO HIDE IT! But she can’t take a hint and she tells me OMG “I cried at work today in the freezer 🥺 Kimchi is so bossy at work!” GIRL first of pathetic that she cries at work… secondly, KIMCHI isn’t bossy she’s just working? Tina wants to chat and play games. Miss girl, working IS NOT A PLAYGROUND You get money? That’s the point! And I tried telling her that because I have no idea what she wanted me to say, and she’s like “ITS NOT ABOUT THE MONEY!😭” 😐😐? Mofo, theeeennnnn why are you working? Shut up! And the other day she saw her ex in the DRIVE -THRU JUST THAT he didn’t even see her and she quote had both a panic and an anxiety attack and she called me when she got home and she was like “I can’t help that he just ignites fear & anxiety in me🥺” shut your mouth. First of he is so ugly, I can’t BELIEVE people stoop that low. Or are just that god damn ugly. 🙄🙄🙄 So if he ignites so much fear WHY WAS ALLL YOU TALKED ABOUT WAS HOW AMAZING YOUR RELATIONSHIP WAS???!!!?!? For how ugly he is how could it be anything BUT?! Anyway, she also sent unsolicited unasked for bare nudes to this dude… with a girlfriend and quote said “I want to ride you into the sunset” I PEED MYSELF when I heard that. WHERE DID SHE LEARN THAT?! Sorry. GOSH and she is so jealous of Kimchi & I it’s not even funny IDK WHYYYY SHE DOESNT JUST SAY IT! And she is so mean to me all the time because I always talk about how i’m h word all the time and I love fanfiction and smut AND DRACO! And she’s like “Gosh is there anything else you talk about?” When I DONT even tell her any of that I just post it on my story… Which when do I have to start posting things to are solicited? FOR HER?! And when we do talk SHE NEVER EVER LISTENS The amount of times i’ve had to explain my situation to her and this dumb whore still can’t get it through her slick skull is unbelievable truly. She’s a TERRIBLE friend. And she is also a gamer girl. 😐 completely pointless if you ask me. And she talks to people on discord. Sorry only boys* AND SHES SO ANNOYING “BAH oh my goddddd Johnny! 😆” 😐 Hoe stfu. And she’s like “addicted” to drugs and nicotine and she lives in florida so she has like a bunch of the vape things idk what they’re called but she’s always like “I want some nic.” Or “I want weed” IF SHE was TRULY addicted she’d have it. AND SHE FLAUNTS her vape smoke EVERYTIME girl. I don’t care. I DO NOTTTTT CAREE I DONT KNOW how to make her understand that!! And Kimchi also does her vape things but I NEVER notice otp because she doesn’t care either. GOSH TINA IS SO ANNOYING AMD SO MEAN AND SO SENSITIVE. And i’ve been trying to tell her that iI don’t enjoy being her friend but she just wants to argue with me! and I am not about to argue with someone as dumb as her. She’s also OMG i’ll stop now but that’s all I GUESS. 😋

jeez this was a lot to take in

BUT PLS ‘I WANT TO RIDE YOU INTO THE SUNSET’ ??? IM SHITTING MYSELG WHAT EVEN-

but like i fucking hate ppl like that i used to have a friend who just showed off her vapes and shit like……

anyways just stop talking to her especially if she doesn’t wanna hear about fanfics and shit she seems rude and i dislike her if u do babe 😩

i’d just stop talking to her and fall in love with the one who isn’t annoying tbh 😋

[toxicpineapple]

my (personal favourite) writings from 2019

I don’t have anything for January because I guess I didn’t write/didn’t post anything then? At any rate, here are my favourite writings from every month of 2019.

---

February:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17764769/chapters/41916899 : “To Give Life Meaning”, a 5+1 things Hinanami fic I wrote over the course of several days, mostly at night. The honourific situation with this one is messy and there are the beginnings of a lot of good lines? Like I know what I was trying to say. But it’s not the kind of thing that I would be happy posting nowadays. (Ignore the fact that it says it was completed in September of this year; I went through nine months later and separated the different sections into chapters so that it would be easier to read. I wrote and published all of it back in February.) This was the second Danganronpa fic I ever wrote.

Content warnings: Contains talk of suicide, and mentions of being suicidal. Generally in the past tense. Nobody is proactive in this fic.

---

March:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18232343 : “Hold his hand”, the very first Amasai one-shot I ever wrote. I got the idea for this one late at night thinking about how Shuichi would react if his mom died. I was actually going to write this with Ryoma comforting him, or Kiyo maybe, but I ended up doing Rantaro because I watched all of his FTEs with Shuichi and was like… I do like this green man. Anyway, I’m glad I did, because if I hadn’t I don’t know if the Amasai series would… even exist. That’s really weird to think about.

Content warnings: Minor character death on the part of Shuichi’s mother. The focus of the piece isn’t her dying (as it is in fact from Rantaro’s perspective) so much as it is the conflicting emotions that it stirs up for Shuichi, but it’s still, y’know, someone’s mother dying. Anyway, read with caution.

---

April:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468478 : “Does it matter?”, a late-night fic where Aoi is conflicted about her sexuality and calls Makoto to talk about it. I wrote a lot of one-shots in April (I actually surprised myself going through them haha) but this one is my favourite because it touches on things that I don’t see addressed a lot. Makoto and Aoi are good friends. 10/10.

Content warnings: Internalised homophobia. It hasn’t triggered anybody that I know of because it’s mostly just Makoto giving advice and Aoi coming to the conclusion that she really likes Sakura in a not-so-platonic way, but y’know.

---

May:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18776947 : “Shuichi thinks too much”, another installment in the Amasai drabbles series, and… wow. I literally only posted Amasai in the month of May. This one is my favourite (of the ones I posted in May, obviously) because it’s the one where Shuichi realises that Rantaro is claustrophobic and then they have a messy first kiss in the wake of Rantaro’s panic attack. I like fics where Character A kisses Character B and B has to be like… slow down partner… ur panicking. I also just like milking Rantaro angst so it’s a win-win. I go back and read this one periodically :)

Content warnings: Panic attacks, claustrophobia. Shuichi is exhausted in this fic haha but at least he has his shit together enough to know exactly what he’s feeling through the whole thing.

---

June:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19210423 : “Quiet Moments”, an introspective drabble/character study in which Peko thinks about how much she loves Ibuki. Damn, I love Pekobuki. I haven’t written nearly enough for them. I wrote a lot of things in June (including an Undertale one-shot which was a strong contender for this spot just because this list is dominated by Danganronpa stuff) but this one is my favourite because it was just me… rambling about how much I love Ibuki… and projecting onto Peko. Which I do every time I write this pairing, but I didn’t make this list to call myself out, so yeah I’m just going to move on.

Content warnings: Peko briefly mentions that Fuyuhiko had to get an appendectomy within the piece, but it’s nothing intense.

---

July:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19974424 : “Take his soul with a kiss”, a Grim Reaper AU in which Maki is Death and Kaito is a guy with the audacity to tell her to wait a week before grabbing her soul. I’ve finally hit the part of this summer where I was eating one meal a day and spending the rest of my time on my laptop writing fic. 14k words a day, babey! I wrote all my favourite pieces in July (Shuichi’s love hotel, the one where Rantaro pierces Shuichi’s ears, the domestic Hinanami, the one where Shuichi has a breakdown and everyone comforts him, that one where Shuichi is mean to Kokichi and then apologises) but this one definitely deserves to be here because it’s my favourite. I like Momoharu/Kaimaki/Harukaito (idk what y’all call it man) so, uh. Yeah.

Content warnings: Death is talked about a lot but I don’t want to spoil anything about the ending by saying shit so I’ll just??? It’s a Grim Reaper AU, procede with caution. Oh, and Kaito has a lung disease.

---

August:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20442290/chapters/48499868 : “Causation and Correlation”, another 5+1 things fic (I have a good chunk of them) where Kyoko can hear death and so she goes around saving people. Also, in the end of the fic, someone saves her. It’s a cute fic and I love writing Kyoko so obviously this one is my favourite. (The one where Kokichi has parents and the Kaemugi fic I wrote that month are ones I really like too… this isn’t easy for me gamers ;w;) This is one of those fics where I was feeling extremely confident about my writing abilities the whole time I wrote it, and I’m still really proud of it.

Content warnings: Again, uh, death? Attempted murder, near-drowning, sickness, head injuries, and also attempted suicide. (Nobody dies in this fic, though.) Kyoko has her work cut out for her in this one.

---

September:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20577251 : “Cigarette smoke”, a vaguely nonsensical Saimota piece I wrote where Kaito breaks down and Shuichi comforts him. I’ve only written Saimota twice and both times it’s been Kaito angst because you guys, you just, you don’t address his sadness at all unless it’s in Oumota (and we all know how I feel about Oumota). I should start referring to September as “the month of angst fics I wrote in the middle of the night” because that’s exactly what all of it was. This one wasn’t a vent fic, but there were a lot of them. September is also the month I started doing Amami week, so there’s a lot of that, too.

Content warnings: Kaito really… berates himself in this one. His internal dialogue is hard for me to read in this one because he’s super hard on himself. He also has a meltdown and starts hyperventilating at one point (and the way I write breakdowns is always super descriptive) so please make sure you’re happy and healthy before reading.

---

October:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21195527 : “In the forever sense of the term”, what is probably my favourite Amasai fic at this moment, where Shuichi and Rantaro are forced to address Shuichi’s abandonment issues, and also there’s crying. A lot of it. From Shuichi mainly but a little bit from Rantaro too. I was surprised at how many fics I wrote in October because I was mostly focusing on Inktober I should think? I wrote a lot of original works in Inktober (though I ended up falling off the wagon at the end due to burnout) and it was a really fun experience! I think it strengthened my skills as a writer. Anyway this one is cathartic as hell.

Content warnings: The self loathing is strong with this one. It’s one of many mental breakdown fics that I’ve written this year. And there’s obviously the abandonment issues thing. Yikes.

---

November:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21399748 : “One hundred and twenty six tiles on the ceiling”, where Himiko ends up bailing on plans she made with everyone to hang out and instead stays at home, stewing in self deprecation, until Ryoma shows up, and then everyone else comes to take care of her. Another one of those ones where everyone is there for someone after a breakdown. I like this one because Himiko is my baby and most of the angst the fandom puts out for her is centered around Tenko and Angie, which sucks because I headcanon her as having depression. Like, depression that is entirely unrelated to the people she knows kind of depression. I didn’t write a lot in November because I had a relapse, but I like this one anyway.

Content warnings: Depressive episode, disassociating, suicidal ideation, all the ugly things that come with depression. This isn’t a pretty fic. I don’t write depression as something that’s pretty or poetic because it’s not. It fucking sucks and that’s just how things are going to be.

---

December:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21976864/chapters/52442179 : “An Ode to Yellow Carnations”, a 5+1 things fic where Tsumugi is a florist and Kaede takes different people to her shop until eventually she goes by herself. Is anyone surprised to see this one here? I wrote it for Tumblr’s Danganronpa Secret Santa Gift Exchange 2019 and went waaaay overboard with it. Which is probably why I like it so much. It took me ten days to actually complete, and I’ll frame it like I was diligently writing the whole time, but anyone who knows me knows that I never do things in that way. In truth I switched ideas for the fic four different times and then wrote half of it all in one night when I was hit with a surge of inspiration. I was really nervous that the person I wrote it for would hate it since it’s so long, lol. (Hi Alerane, I love you.) Anyway, I’m gonna think of December of this year as the month where I spent a really long time on a bunch of fics and then posted them all at once.

Content warnings: Very minor character death, mentions of alcohol use (nothing egregious, just recreational use on an outing with friends and all the characters are of age), also Kaede doesn’t go outside in this fic.

---

I’m going to try and get out one more fic before the year ends. To be honest I wasn’t expecting to have updated Search by now so I’ve been kind of sitting around wondering what I should write. Maybe I should just start on the Aki chapter, but I’m kind of putting that off because writing those chapters takes a lot of energy and Aki’s is probably going to double Tsubaki’s in length. (Which is great, since Tsubaki’s was already a monster of a chapter on its own.) I’ve had a really great year for writing, y’all. I’ve made lots of friends and learned a whole lot about myself, and my writing style, and the characters I’m trying to portray.

I didn’t include any long-term multi-chapters in this list, like The Best Lies or my Fanganronpa (rip… I swear I’ll pick it back up again soon, I love those characters) but if you want to track my progress as a writer without reading eleven different fics, I’d really recommend reading one of those, because you can see it happening as the chapters go on. There’s so much that I’d probably write differently from where I am now as a writer, because that’s just how things work. Life is like that. You do things a certain way in the moment, and then later, you wish you could’ve done them differently. It’s impossible to live your life without regrets, or things that you’d like to do over again.

But for what it’s worth, I’m really happy that I don’t have to. Thank you guys so much for sticking with me this year. It hasn’t been the best, but it’s been all that it’s been capable of being.

Here’s to a new decade.

[nobodies-png]

Sorry about that! Here's the letters I would like for Luxu/Xigbar: c d f j l x y z

gotcha ! 

C omfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

Xigbar’s learnt to face everything head on and work around the problems, but he knows that kind of approach might not work for everyone - so if that doesn’t work for you, he’d try to figure out and see what does work. Maybe you need to wind down and go to a safe place without strong stimuli, just chill and stay grounded. Maybe you just need to scream and vent it out. Or maybe you just wanna curl up in a ball and cry for a while. That’s all valid. 

 The guy has pretty much a lot of free time, so if you can’t tell him specifically what he can do to help you in these situations, he doesn’t mind helping you find out. Needless to say, he doesn’t condone any type of habit or behaviour that can be harmful to you in any way. 

D reams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

He doesn’t, easy. Boom. Can’t stress over what you so blatantly ignore and avoid to think about.

Also i’m answering these on reverse so i’mma go out and say that the last answer of this post can also apply to this question here.

F ight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

Xigbar is rather lenient. The man knows how to play his cards to his favour and avoid the subjects that would genuinely get him mad. And the fact that time and death stopped having any sort of meaning to him also adds to this. What’s the point in staying MAD when everything is fleeting and bound to end ? Why not enjoy it to the fullest ? If you did anything to need to ask for his forgiveness, you can b e t Xigbar would just brush it off eventually - maybe joke and tease here and there about it. I think I even mentioned this before, it’s not necessarily a good quality as it can easily mean he doesn’t take things seriously.

So yeah, any argument with Xigbar is not a fight you can win. Even when it’s proven that you were in the right, you’ll always be left with a feeling of uncertainty, like you didn’t quite get your point across and you were simply told “yes, dear you were right” so you would simlpy avoid losing your temper. Again, very frustrating when you need to properly communicate with him. 

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

He acts jealous and spoiled, but only for fun. If you start befriending someone else or if you get along with someone new, Xigbar will butt in afterwards with silly jokes like “Oi, don’t forget about me” and such, keep you on your toes with his sudden appearances and public displays of affection. But all in all, he trusts you, so he has absolutely no reason to actually feel jealous. He also trusts that his reputation is infamous enough to let others know better than to try anything with you, whether it’s flirting or bringing you any harm.

But you know, the guy is still uh… human, I assume, so there are some things that bother him - Xigbar is known for switching bodies to continue his mission, but he kinda resents being so old ? So there are those rare moments when he sees you messing around with more active and young members like Demyx or Axel and he’ll just sulk in his own because this current vessel is getting old.

L ove Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?

It highly depends on how receptive you are, really.

If you acknowledge his advances and even flirt back, then he sees no point in stopping the fun to get all mushy and gushy and touchy feely. There is a clear mutual attraction, no need to confirm it oudloud with a love confession, right ? Unless you show him that’s EXACTLY the kind of romance you want, then he doesn’t mind pullling something outta his ass. 

If you’re the dense type, he’d take it as a personal challenge - how far does he have to go for you to realize that he’s into you ? If it backfires and you still have no clue, then Xigbar would just resort to letting you know directly. No blushing, no stuttering, no cute confession, just him and his straight forward nature. But I can also see him as giving a half-assed confession, kinda direct but also kinda confusing, a challenge for you this time, see if you can figure him out yourself.

X OXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

Yes, yes and yes. The casual, light hearted and fun kind of affection is his favorite - like when he sweeps you off your feet out of nowhere just to see your reaction and then see how your first instinct is to hold on tight to him, only to get mad when you realize it’s one of his stupid ass pranks ? And then hearing you laugh when he starts blowing raspberries on your neck so you forgive him ? The best. 10/10, he’s gonna do that again. 

One of Xigbar’s favorite games is to see how many kisses he can steal from you on a daily basis without getting his ass beaten by you. And having the power of controlling s p a c e and portals really gives him a lot of advantage. But he loves it even more when you’re the one to take the initiative for these things, like smooching and cuddling. As much fun as he has when he’s messing with you, Xigbar also loves knowing that you like him just as much. 

Y earning - How will they cope when they’re missing their partner?

This is the kind of guy that would sneak out of work just to bother you while you work, so take a wILD GUESS. But of course, Xigbar has plans to keep an eye on, make sure it goes according to plan so if he really really cannot afford to sneak away for a bit to see you, then he’s going to complain. Very loudly and very annoyingly, to whoever’s nearby to listen, probably turning it into a game to see how much whining they’re willing to withstand before their breaking point. It helps him forget that he misses you and keep his head in the game. 

And now that i’m thinking, it kinda sucks that bad guys don’t get phones cause otherwise, Xigbar would be blowing up your texts, spamming you at every given chance with cryptic shit, memes or stupid stuff.

Z eal - Are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

I -

I’m actually NOT sure :thonk:

Cause it’s obvious that he takes after the Master of Masters, in the way he jokes and even moves. Xigbar is loyal to him and his own mission, he’s changed wildly for the sake of completeing it. Both physically and emotionally, meaning that while he might be one cunning bastard, he might not be sensible or in tune with actual emotions. There is that small chance that everything he does unrelated to his mission is just idle entertainment, something to pass the time. 

Sure, he might love you. But he might’ve loved a dozen other people before this, all probably long gone. Sure, you might love him. But he’s had a dozen other identities. And while Xigbar values the present, it’s kinda hard to go to a great length for a relationship when in his eyes, it’s bound to end due to his responsibilities.It’s very bittersweet. But even so, we still know little about him - so this loyalty of his could easily extend to you, just like it applies to MoM and the other lost masters. 

So I dunno, gamers. I think that as long as Xigbar doesn’t have to directly choose between you or his mission, he’s ready to do pretty much anything, even if it’s just for the sake of seeing what happens. 

[god-hunter]

Adjusting to Singledom

It’s about time for an update on my Single Situation, if that’s what we’re calling it.  I’ve been meaning to clarify some things since unofficially starting these rants back in 2018 anyway.  It might be short, it might be long.  So let’s run through it and see.  I’m gonna be talking about 6 girls that I’m talking to, so pay attention and keep up.  This rant is going to be interesting.

First of all, the Work Crush that I had brought up originally back in 2018 is NOT Dancing Girl.  Nono, Work Crush, or Original Crush was a 28 year old Barbie lookin’ Office Hottie that had so much bubbly energy about her, I didn’t know what to do with it.  I never resolved that story, btw.  After we became Friends on Facebook, she was that type of person that didn’t really message much.  Eventually group hang outs happened and she met my Then-Girlfriend.  And the two got along so well that we just became Couple Friends.

Post break up, she had reached out to me.  I’m going to refer to her as Twin, because that is what she used to refer to me as at work, affectionately.  First of all, Twin & her boyfriend were supposed to come over for dinner, but it didn’t work out.  It’s just as well, because my Ex and I got into a fight while fixing up the apartment before they had cancelled.  Then we broke up.   So with this bizarre scenario, Twin had still wanted to see me.  I’ll be 3rd Wheeling it and checking out their new apartment instead [which is not so new at this point.]. That plan has never surfaced as of yet, due to general busyness, but now Covid-19 is affecting our plans. Since time is moving on, by the time this outbreak calms down I’ll probably be settled into my own place.  And she is very much looking forward to visiting me with her guy one day, but I’m not holding my breath.

I mention Twin, because she’s a former crush that won’t go away.  I’m not trying to do anything, obviously. She has a great boyfriend who likes me a lot.  But she’s definitely a significant girl in my life, and I would be very happy to hang with her (and him) more in the future.

Speaking of couples, I’m going to refer to my Beautiful Friendship as the Significant Couple.  They are certainly a collective and I still like talking to them a lot.  I won’t deny that I’ve been hoping to be intimate again since that one awesome night, but the differing schedules make that very difficult.  Still, one thing worth noting is that I’ve spoken to both parties about the idea of... not hanging up the phone when They want to get intimate, and neither are opposed to it.  So for the moment, I’ll just leave it at that =).  I respect these 2 immensely for being so open to their experiences.

But now it’s time to add some new names to this mix.  This was the purpose of this entry.  Let’s talk about Bakery Girl.  This too, is a former co-worker and friend of Twin.  I call her Bakery Girl because she literally left our job to work in a new office for better pay, but hated it so much that she ended up quitting and working at her favorite Bakery that she’s now a Manager of.  So, that seemed to work out for her, for now. Well, this is a person that was always pleasant at work.  She was always nice, and nice on the eyes lol.  We always got along, but didn't really interact or ever flirt.  Still... Facebook can be a real beautiful thing.

Before she had left our job, she had mentioned that she wanted to get drinks with me.  (Not just me, but a bunch of us from work.). Of course I said yeah as this was just a friend thing.  ...It never happened.  Instead Dancing Girl came out and.. that crush began, I guess.

But anyway...  Since the Breakup I opened up to a bunch of people.  And I suppose it was week 3 or so, that I had told her about it on FB.  I’m not quite sure when we first spoke about my new situation, but I do remember being in my old bedroom and not feeling miserable, because she was so fun to talk to.  I wasn’t moping about my last chapter, but merely informing her as we caught up.  And then as we talked, the energy felt borderline flirty, or sort of like this friendly vetting process.  What I mean by that is we’ll tell each other stuff, and see how the other feels about the topics.  Most we agree on.  Some we definitely differ on.  But respect is there. Anyway, more-to-the-point.  After a couple of failed attempts at talking on Facebook, I tried one more time last night and got another good conversation with her.  And this time, I was able to bring it over to the phone.  I got her number!  So who knows if it’ll go anywhere, but for now I’ll take that victory. This girl’s definitely a good person, and even if it’s a long-term developing thing she is someone definitely worth keeping in touch with.  It really helps that she’s 28 and not 21.  Or as she refers to Dancing Girl... she’s not 12, lol.  [Yes, she knows Dancing Girl too from work, but she has no idea that I was into her.  I plan to keep it that way.]

Speaking of Dancing Girl, her and Dante are fucking annoying, yo.  We barely talk at breaks now, because I’m not trying.  Instead Dante’s either being an idiot or just cooing at her, and the two of them are just obnoxious with each other in my space.  But I’m learning to put it in its place.  Literally everything is changing.  Breaks now seem to get split up between us all chilling and talking, then the two of them splitting off to smoke weed, while my other dude in his 40′s goes and smokes a cig by himself.  Today I took it upon myself to make it my new normal to join him when he smokes that cig.  Since no one else really talks to each other any more...  We just literally hang around each other while everyone’s on their phones.  It sickens me.  But I guess that’s what happens when Millenials see each other every day...  [And no, I don’t smoke, but I’ve always gone outside for the fresh air and good company.  Now that company ain’t so good any more, but they’re still my friends.]

There’s another former co-worker I hit up, but nothing to really report yet.  I don’t have a codename for her yet, but I asked if she’d like to catch up over dinner and she said, yes.  But after the Coronavirus passes, if that’s okay.  I told her it was, and instead we caught up on Facebook for an hour or so.  For now I’ll call her the Social Distancer... =P

And lastly, I’m going to bring up Gamer Girl.  This one’s a slippery slope, but it’s very important to talk about now, because I do not know what is going to happen next.  She is my Ex’s friend, but ever since we dated, she was always into both of us.  Like, she literally would’ve swung with us if my Ex was into that.  I’ll never forget, she was like, “Wow. You two are hot.”   She’s been referred to as a Unicorn, because she loves getting into sexual situations, but she has no romantic attachment to any of it.  And this is why I’m bringing her up. Again, it was about 3 weeks after the break up.  The Ex and I had gotten into a fight post-break up, which propelled me to really want to leave.  And at the worst time, she messaged me starting with, “I hope this doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable...”  And then she proceeded to talk about how she was lonely and not good at making friends and needs an area friend to hang out with.  She brought up a past divorce and that she doesn’t want anything romantic, but she wants to play video games and have pizza with me.  She opened it up as a night where I could vent to her and just have fun.

Against my better judgement, I said yeah.  Plans weren’t made until this week.  Literally tomorrow night, I’ll be seeing what this actually is.  Now, on paper, it might simply be pizza and video games.  But we’ve talked a little since then.  In the first place, she was flirty and brought up her whole schedule for the week.  Then she said, “On this day I’m off and have no plans other than to have no pants on.”  Something like that.  Now, why would she say something like that to me, if not to get a rise out of me...? Then I gagued it a little further when we made the plan.  She brought up that Free Pizza is best pizza and I told her, “No way. I’ll happily pay my share,”  then she explained to me that she has so many points that it’ll be a completely free pizza.  So instead I offered to supply the drinks and asked what she likes. “Rum and Coke is my poison of choice,”  o.o. “Rum and Coke it is!!”

So we’re drinkin’ now...

I’m trying not to get my hopes up.  I’m trying not to make it weird. But knowing that this girl didn’t want to make me uncomfortable, but she's been lonely since her divorce and wants to hang out, but doesn’t want anything romantic...  and knowing that she’s the type of person to screw without attachment...  and then she’s telling me that she wants to drink, now...

I mean, how can I not get a little excited!?  Also, we’re playing Fallout Vegas, so that’ll probably be very fun. Right now my plan is to expect nothing, but be prepared for it to get weird.  The Ex will inevitably be brought up, along with any venting that goes along with it.

I don’t expect to win her over that way, and I’m not exactly trying to do that anyway.  But who knows how she gets?  Maybe she’s just casual as fuck and she’ll want to cuddle??  For comfort??  I have no idea.

But as a Single Dude, I am fucking Game.  This is my new Revolution, man.  I don’t care.  Between the randomness of this hang out, Bakery Girl practically interviewing me about the Ex - asking if I’m over her and then giving me her number, and the Social Distancer being interested in dinner, I’m feeling Really Confident right now.  Not to mention that the Significant Couple is chill as fuck and I always like talking to them.

Things are interesting now...  Things are definitely different.  My New Normal isn’t here yet.  But I’m adjusting all the same.

[seeking-knowledge]

August 23th 2018

So, in one of my first posts I mentioned that there was this really intense teacher that acts just like a judge to abilities we don’t yet have and a gatekeeper that wants as many of us as possible to give up.

The last three classes we’ve had with him are just further proof of that. (Heads up, this will turn in to some sort of vent, but it’s something I think is very important for professors everywhere).

I don’t know what is his objective, really. But as of now it seems that is to scare the hell out of us so only a few that are willing to suffer for something we shouldn’t suffer for stay. He is supposed to help us get in the same level of maths and physics, since we’re arriving with different depths of knowledge. He should be teaching us basic stuff so we’re ready to learn the topics in the study plan.

Instead of that, he is doing the complete opposite. He comes, talks about whatever he feels like and then gives us 20 exercises about vectors. Something that we are yet to learn in our study plan! We aren’t supposed to know this and we definitely aren’t supposed to be able to solve this complicated exercises.

And when we ask him about the problems he answers like it’s something we can just deduce if we take the necessary time. Which might be true for some things but not for everything.

Where I’m trying to get is that

If you’re teaching a group of people [I don’t care if they pay you or not, if you do it because you find it amusing, because you feel forced or for whatever reason] your job is to help them all towards success, to be there for them so they can all learn.

If you’re treating with students in their first semester/year, you acknowledge that they’re scared and sensitive and that all of them come from different backgrounds, so you want to welcome them, because you want as many of them to stay and graduate as possible! Not the opposite! Not like those gatekeepers in the gamer community that are just waiting to judge and scare “noobs” away. That’s now how education works.

...

I’m just really angry. But again, I was told a lot of people in this area are like this. They become salty and rude and arrogant at some point. So I guess I can be grateful just one of them is my professor and not more.

I hope everyone of my group can manage through this nonesense.

[nyxi-styx]

It’s hard joining a new fandom sometimes

I’m just going to take a minute to vent a little bit of my feelings and I honestly don’t care if anyone reads this.

At 25 years old (24 when I started getting dragged into it all), I thought I was “too old” to be a YouTube fan. It was, after all, rather after my time. Established in 2005, I didn’t really experience anything on YouTube until about 2007-2008. Back then it was meme-y BS like Shoop-da-Whoop, “Shoes”, Charlie the Unicorn, and Potter Puppet Pals. As I grew older, YouTube seemed like something better left to teens. Maybe use it to look up a music video or something instructional and then fall down a Slow-Mo Guys or choreography rabbit hole. Still not a fandom. The closest I came to such was binge-watching Rob Dyke’s WWYPTOTI series and Twisted Tens series.

At Indy PopCon 2016, I was there with friends to see a guest (and caught glimpses of a passing Kevin Smith as I was so that was badass). Two of my friends were already in the YouTube culture world and fans of Markiplier and Dan & Phil. While we were having a snack and playing a card game, they spotted Wade (THE LordMinion777) taking some photos with fans int eh same food court area. I went over and took the photo of them with him, having no idea who this dude was. Less than a month later, (I’d say about 2 weeks) one of those two friends finally introduced me to Markiplier. I don’t remember the reasoning, but she showed me I Am Bread first. It was funny. I liked it. I didn’t think I’d get as into it as she did. However, curiosity had the better of me and I went to my room that night and watched him play ALL of OctoDad: Dadliest Catch. I laughed so hard I cried and that sold it for me. I fell in love. Of course, I had known a little about him due to gratuitous gifs and photos all over this godforsaken hellsite and I always thought he seemed like a nice, genuine person. Overtime, I just kept watching. I got to know about Bob and Wade and Team Edge. I fell in love with Chica. I just really enjoyed myself. Of course, I knew a little bit about JackSepticEye too, but I though being a Markiplier fan was about as deep into YouTube fandom as I was going to get.

About February, I saw a recommended playlist of JSE videos on an unrelated site. At this point, the post with the playlist was about 4 months old. I decided to go ahead and watch it, just to try something new. Naturally, I fell in love. I loved Jack more than I love Mark soon enough, not through any fault of Mark or anything. He’s still a wonderful person. I just loved that Jack was jsut unabashedly, fully, enjoying himself and nerding out and THEN doing the “professional” thing and reviewing the game whereas Mark would try to review while playing and get distracted by his own emotions and reactions. Not that that is a bad thing. That doesn’t mean Jack is better than Mark. I love them both SO much, but I find it easier to connect with Jack that way because that’s how I am too. I think that’s how most of us are. Once again, I thought this was as deep into YouTube fandom as I was going to get. I caught up with most of their videos (both Mark and Jack). The ones that interested me anyway. And then I would go back and forth and catch up on their latest. So, naturally, I got to know Tyler and Ethan too.

Unfortunately- and I feel like dirt admitting this, like I feel so fucking guilty and that’s why I’m venting here- I paid a lot of attention to Tyler and Mark and not a whole lot to Ethan. I didn’t have anything against him at all. He was funny and adorable. I just... *shrug*. But eventually, his self-deprecating jokes about “my channel is dying” started echoing in my head. And I found myself going “Why?” I knew they would tease him about his opening (which I think is a little unfair since it happens to be joked about more than Mark’s or Jack though there’s are targeted too) and that was about it. So, I finally went and I hit that subscribe button and waited until I had a little bit of time to really check out the content.

I finally sat down and opened the Crank Gameplays channel and started saving playlists of content that I found interesting. I don’t remember where exactly I started but I was kind of like “Okay. Cool. Cool. I mean there’s a lot of similarities between YouTube gamers, so how much can you really do?” But then I saw the video of Ethan and his brother singing “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and I was like “Wow! He can sing! He’s got a really nice voice! It’s kind of that rugged jazzy, folks-y type voice. He kinda reminds me of like... Train or Matt Nathanson. Neato.” But then in ‘recommended’ came a video (I assume a clip from a livestream) of Ethan playing ukulele and covering “Can’t Help Falling In Love”. If there’s one thing I’m a sucker for, it’s Elvis songs.

I watched that video and fell. in. LOVE. Instant stan. I don’t know what it was but I just... couldn’t help falling in love. Haha.

Like I do, I instantly tried to find out a lot about him as if to play catch up. I was surprised to find out he’s a bit younger than me. But he’s got the same birthday as my dad (three days before mine and 3 days after my favourite actor) so of course I thought that was pretty freaking cool.

Maybe it’s because I always root for the underdog and the secondary characters... maybe it’s because blue is my favourite colour... maybe it’s because I am a sucker for hazel eyes... maybe it’s because I always fall for the biggest dork... I don’t know. I can’t pinpoint it, but Ethan is so wildly different from Mark and Jack. They’re all super nice, super genuine guys, but something about Ethan tugs at my heartstrings way more.

Whatever it is, I’m happy to be here. I’m happy to watch him grow and succeed in the next year. And I’m SO excited to have the chance to meet him at Indy PopCon 2018.

The thing is, though... I feel... like I don’t belong here. In Mark’s fandom, I really am just a number. Nobody notices. Nobody cares. In Jack’s fandom... well, the Overnight Watch was my first foray into community interaction and I was so surprised and overwhelmed by how welcome I was. Like it didn’t matter how long I had been a fan, what mattered was that I was a fan and I was happy to be interacting. And it’s nice to be a part of a fandom in which there’s little to no toxicity and drama and hatred amongst fans. It’s nice to be completely accepted.

In Ethan’s fandom... well, I’ve been here all of about a week... and I feel like I’m trying too hard. Like I shouldn’t be in this community because everyone else has been here longer. Everyone else understands more. Everyone else is better than me. I don’t matter.

This is why it’s nice to have @markidarkimoo as a friend. She stans with me no matter who or what.

The worst of it all in these three fandoms is that I can’t make fanart. I am shit at mood/aesthetic boards. I CAN make video edits, but my current laptop will not support my preferred software and I can’t afford a better laptop for a while. I am shit at photo edits.

I just... I can’t do anything worthwhile. I see all this other amazing work that all of the rest of you put out and I just... feel so insignificant.

Being part of a “big box” fandom like Supernatural or Marvel or Sherlock is easy for me because they’re all fictional characters and people eat up fanfic like they’re starving to death. Doesn’t matter if I can’t fan art. I can contribute to the fandom and show my love by making stories.

YouTube is different. It’s not based on fictional characters (Jack’s Egos and Darkiplier aside), it’s based all on real people. I can’t fanfic that unless it’s reader insert and that’s not something for the creators to see (*if they ever do, please kill me*) and enjoy.

I don’t know... I just feel pretty useless. These fandoms are smaller than the “big box” fandoms so I feel like I have to contribute something in order to properly show my love and appreciation and gratitude. But I can’t. I’m just useless. I’m just a blip.

[md3artjournal]

7:19 PM 9/3/2020 It's come to my attention that although my reblog text under the cut is hidden from a post's Notes/Replies on Tumblr-desktop, it is all very visible on Tumblr-mobile/phone version.  Ugh.  So I could no longer simply reblog the referenced post, and hide all my comments under a cut.  So here are all my angsting thoughts again, after doodling this drawing, but as a separate post, for my art journal blog.  

10:42 PM 9/2/2020

I don’t even know what I'm doing anymore.  Today, I sat down to draw and I must have wasted 15+minutes, indecisive about what to draw with.  I wanted to just use one of my fountain pens, but

1) Yesterday's line bleeds proved that the Pilot Petit is just not good for my tiny doodles;

2) My only other fountain pen is my Platinum Preppy, but I should be saving that ink for writing in my habit tracker; that's what I bought it for; and it's not so easy to just buy more ink cartridges during this pandemic;

3) My fountain pens' inks are not waterproof? What if halfway through my drawing I decide I want to use half watercolors?  Again?  

So then my safest option was my Copic Gasenfude.  Impervious to water, alcohol marker ink, everything.  But my pen is so dry...  I tested it beforehand, to convince myself it was still fine.  But the test felt very different from the drawing.  During drawing, I missed the smooth flow of my fountain pens sooooooooooo much.  I should've just opened one of my new Gasenfude pens for this drawing.  But I'm too chicken about using up supplies, in general.  x_____x;;;;;;;;;  

What's with my Copic Multiliners?  Do they just bleed more on my cheap sketchbook paper?  Because I remember my lines being fuzzy on the close-up scans too.  Or am I just so out of practice drawing with them now, that all my lines end up stiffer than usual?  Or maybe they're getting dry too?  They are pretty old pens by now.  ~.~;  

*sigh* I miss my fountan pens, but I need waterproof ink for my linework.  x_x;  

I heard that Indian ink is waterproof after it dries, but all my bottles of Indian Ink dried up decades ago.  Plus, all my dip pens are rusty and don't even work with my acrylic inks that I already have.  I don't want to buy more supplies, then they turn out to not really work for me.  I've done that too much already.  ...Though I do have my eye on that Deleter trial dip pens set...and Indian ink sounds too good to be true...  But I have so many supplies lying around, I really should just find a way to use them.  Even if they turned out to not really work for how I naturally think/work, I already spent the money on them.  I should *find* a way to make them work.  I'm so simultaneously wasteful AND cheap with my art supplies! X~x!  

That's also why I want to be able to switch over to cheap $1-store/Daiso watercolors, instead of using up Copic ink on full drawings.  But if I never know when I'm going to need that mid-way medium switch, then I need waterproof/Copic-proof ink.  

Well, no matter the case, it probably wouldn't help my terrible terrible drawing too much.  I mean, today's doodle gave me problems making lines because the ink just would not flow out of my drying Gasenfude pen.  But also, I had to realize that I've become out of practice with true brushpens.  I've been using Copic Sketch and nylon nib "brushpens" all this time, thinking I've stayed in practice.  But bristle brushpens are too different, and I forgot that.  I've become horrible with brushpens, and the Gasenfude used to be my go-to.  x_______x;;;;;

Anyway, nothing about drawing today has been good for my self-esteem.  I made a horrible drawing, that wasn't even pretty, I started too high on the page and too close to yesteray's doodle, so Akira and Ryuji's heads ended up squashed on top, to fit into the page space.  I was reminded how easily I lose skill even with mediums/tools that I used to be competent at.  I proved yet again that I just can't make beautiful drawings---and maybe that's more of an issue of me not actually wanting to be good at drawing.  I didn't want to admit it, but maybe that's something I have to do.  Maybe I don't actually want to become good at drawing.  I hate studying, I can't stand brushing up on human antomy, perspective, gesture motions, all those fundamentals, and every time I force myself to, I get so frustrated, I'm horrible to myself and everyone else around me in real life.  That can't be worth scribbling a bunch of skeletons that end up ugly an reinforcing my low self-esteem anyway.  

My sister commented once that even though being an artist was hard, at least I enjoyed drawing.  At the time, I told her that I don't actually like drawing.  I told her that I liked "having had drawn".  Since then I did find that those statements weren't true.  I have found drawing cathartic, even while I was drawing.  I even felt horrible on days where I didn't get to draw.  I liked drawing.  

...I'm just REALLY REALLY REALLY bad at it, and I have no inclination to put in the hard word to make my drawing better.  But I will spend all day, comparing myself to better fan-artists online, and lamenting how I can never make anything beautiful.  x___x;;;;;;  

So I go around telling people that "I'm actually more of a sculptor than an illustrator", as if distracting to a medium that most people are less familiar with, and that is easier for people like me to make beautiful things, would do anything to help my horrible lack of drawing skills.

I remember, all the times I've tried to learn a new videogame, and I'm inclined to believe tha tmaybe I jsut don't like learning new things.  Even for games that eventually became my favorites, my comforts, my completely intuitive flow states, I was still compeltely frustrated and horrible to be around, while learning.  I shouldn't be surprised then that I don't play videogames as much anymore, even though I'm desperately reluctant to let go of my gamer identity.  But I recall the last party I was invited to, and I was wrangled into learning a new tabletop game.  I was completely against it, all throughout, during, and at every moment.  I was just waiting for it all to end.  I don't think I like games, because learning to play, leaning sets of rules, and functioning within MORE systems, must be the last thing my brain wants to do during leisure time.  I can even remember a few moments when I was obstinately inattentive or simply refusing to abide by office expectations and protocols---and I don't know why!  Why was I just _so_ exasperate and unwilling to put effort into following simple rules?  I'm beginning to I think that maybe as I get older, the less energy I have to learn things.  Which is only a theory, because even when I was younger, I didn't like playing games because I didn't want to learn rules.  Plus, I've always been "someone who loves to learn"...Just academic knowledge and inforational stuff, not games.  Games and human interaction in general, have always been too much work for me to enjoy.  So if there's any reason why I can't get myself to study illustration fundamentals, no matter how much I lament not being able to draw something beautiful (at least to warrant my making a living in artist alley!) then I have to wonder if my inexplicable disdain for learning new rules is the reason.  

I don't even know what I'm writing about.  I think I was originally just hoping that drawing with a new Gasenfude that wasn't drying, would help me draw lines more easily.  x_x;  Please ignore my venting.  

[gman-003]

Skyward Sword play log excerpts

Oh hey, guess who’s still alive? I kind of got sucked into a vortex of freelance projects and moving, and I had completely no time to work on this. I didn’t even queue up the stuff I’d pre-written, things were so hectic. But it seems to be stabilizing now, more or less. I’m not going to try to commit to a schedule yet but I’ll still update on a Tuesday when I do.

While playing, I kept a log of thoughts and experiences, to aid the writing process. Since I'm in the middle of playing, I tend to write in an abbreviated, stream-of-consciousness style. Sometimes it turns out kind of funny. I thought I'd go ahead and share some of the better bits.

And then I swear we are DONE with this fucking game and I’ll be posting about Minish Cap next.

Side note: start with six hearts? wtf worst zelda ever

Six notes in and I'm already declaring it the worst game in the series. I am the *best* at games criticism.

Do the Loftwings not get names? Very bad writing to say "you have a close bond" with a nameless bird. Even just "Crimson" would have been something.

I continued to refer to Link's Loftwing as "Crimson" throughout my notes, because seriously, why don't they have names, if they're supposed to be so important? And why couldn't you just let the player pick a name, the way you could name your horse in earlier games. I judged this complaint too trivial to waste time expounding on, but still, it bugged me.

The idea of a sentient spirit embedded in the Master Sword (this isn't the Master Sword yet but I'll be fucked sideways if the game doesn't end up with that happening) is cool

I also don't filter out my profanity when jotting down notes. "Fucked sideways" is an abbreviated form of "fucked with a sideways rake", which doesn't actually make much more sense, come to think of it. I'm not sure what axis you rotate it on to go sideways...

An invisible voice (a new one this time) tells me to hit it with a skyward strike. I initially thought this was a blatant trap to release some ancient evil, and tried to find ways to bypass it but no, that's actually what you're supposed to do.

Seriously, I thought hammering the sealing spike home was a trap to release an unspeakable horror that would form the rest of the game, and was looking for a sneaky way around it for a secret ending. Nope. You're supposed to listen to the invisible voices. That's practically the moral of *Skyward Sword*, since Zelda also triumphs through the power of listening to invisible voices.

minesweeper in a zelda game? I was not ready. Or actually I was. Perfect beginner game on third try, moved on.

Do not ask how I got to be so good at Minesweeper. It would ruin my hardcore-gamer cred. I'm just naturally good at logic puzzles - that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

game stubbornly continues to give me rupees (full wallet) instead of hearts (1/2 heart left)

You'd think eleven thousand words complaining about a single Zelda game would be enough, but no, I had to cut a lot.

technoblins are constantly blocking me. checking strategy guide for how to not get blocked. Strategy guide useless

This would not be the last time the strategy guide lied to me.

woo vent crawling. expect headcrabs?

wtf groose you live in the sky how do you not know what BIRDS are

 so impa's an angel now. and also gandalf

fucking water temple

This will likely not be the last time this phrase makes an appearance.

Tentalus is supposed to look scary? It looks like a plastic toy teenage girls attach to their cell phones

hey ghirahim, all you had to do to find the second time gate was follow Link stealth-like and wait for Fi to remind him

A lot of game villains would do well to spy on the hero and overhear their advisor characters telling them exactly what to do.

wasn't hyrule polytheistic?

Seriously, can someone make sense of Hyrulian theology? Is Hylia a higher or lower goddess than Farore/Nayru/Din? How is she supposed to fit into the creation myth? If the Hyrulians have a race-specific guardian deity, do the other races have the same? THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS WE WANT ANSWERED.

obligatory zelda tennis boss

Again, we'll probably see this note in pretty much every play log.

tadtone (eugh) search goddammit it's not even a search, it's a bunch of "solve my maze" bullshit

Superman 64 is my go-to reference for this particularly stupid and annoying minigame archetype. Does anyone like it when a game puts the fun on hold and makes you literally jump through hoops?

Oh sure THIS GUY recognizes me as a hero right off the bat, no stupid PROVE THY WORTH quest

I don't remember exactly who THAT GUY was. One of the dragons, probably.

LD-Link-16 start your theories

In reference to a robot in the mines section, near the dragon. But I never actually came up with a good theory for this, although it *is* evidence of prior Links in the timeline, which implies *Skyward Sword* isn't the first one.

[arbitraryallegory]

Extremely niche post

hahaha wherein I work through an issue I have with Dragon Age Inquisition in my usual meandering way fml

So, I’ve been playing Dragon Age Inquisition. I picked it up at Gamestop because they were having a buy 3 get 1 free sale and I wanted FFXII Zodiac Age, FFXV, and the Kingdom Hearts collection. I had a different game as my fourth, but the salesperson told me I needed the playstation subscription thing to play it, so I passed. I asked her if she had any recommendations based on the games I was buying and she suggested DAI, so I was like okay. I play games so little that I’d probably never get around to it anyway.

About 2 weeks ago, I put it in on a whim and very quickly got hooked. I’m not a gamer. I’ll go months without picking up a controller, but sometimes I want to play ever second of free time I have. When I play I play for fun, not for the purity of the experience, so fuck yeah I play on normal (I’ll probably even do casual if I do another playthrough) and I walkthrough the hell out of it and google every big decision I make, because I am also absolutely the type of person who will go back and replay 20 hours if a decision I made earlier breaks bad.

Here’s the thing. I’m playing as a girl Levellan (Dalish elf) mage Inquisitor (named Ghilanna) and I romanced Sera (city elf rogue) before I spoiled myself for what a bad idea that is in my case. 

(Ongoing I’m going to assume whoever is reading this is at least slightly familiar with dragon age lore or else what are you doing lol. Go read the wikipedia, I guarantee you get lost down a rabbit hole for hours.)

I’m playing my Inquisitor as open minded, but absolutely connected to her heritage (if not completely devout to the elven pantheon), and skeptical of the Andrastian religion, the Chantry in particular since they’re responsible for a lot of the things that have happened to the elves. She denies being the Herald of Andraste if asked, but is content to let most people believe what they want. One of the things I love most about Inquisition is that it gives you a lot of room for imagination, so you can headcanon many different motivations for the same decision. 

In my mind, Ghilanna has taken on this burden of the Inquisition mainly because it’s the right thing to do; she’s the only one with the ability to close these rifts in the Veil, but even if that wasn’t the case she could never turn her back on innocent people--no matter what race they are. But she’s smart and she is very shrewd, so I also think she sees this as an opportunity to lift her people out of the mire and muck. With the Inquisition’s resources, the friends she’s made, the favors she’s owed--even when she disbands the Inquisition at the end of all this (provided they win, of course) she’ll still have quite a bit of personal power and prestige, and she plans on wielding it to make the world a better place for everyone, especially elves. It’s why I’ve been so circumspect in choosing customization for Skyhold. Inquisition heraldry and banners and throne, to show that everyone is welcome, no matter where they come from. I allowed Chantry drapes for the Andrastian’s comfort, but I chose Elven stained glass windows and Dalish banner crowns.

This is where the problem with Sera comes in. Sera is a city elf, which means she was in an alienage at least for a little while (Alienages are basically walled slums in cities where elves are sequestered. It’s almost impossible to get out of them and live in the city proper, and the few who manage it are usually driven back eventually). She was adopted by a human woman when she was a small child, and the woman--though she seemed to be at least mostly well-meaning--told some terrible lies that gave Sera a ton of trust issues. She’s internalized the discrimination against elves to a really heartbreaking point. She rejects any attempt to connect with her as an elf by making scathing remarks about being “too elfy”; she’s human trained so she can’t wear armor for elf-trained rogues. She feels like other elves look down on her, so she takes the initiative and repels them first and rejects every single aspect of elven culture. It’s incredibly difficult to romance her as an elven Inquisitor (which should have been a clue to what was coming tbh)

As I said, I spoiled myself after I’d already managed (somehow) to get on her good side and start up a romance with her. It turns out that after a certain quest, Sera tells the Inquistor that she thinks something that happened on the quest was bullshit. I’m not clear on exactly what happens, but I’m pretty sure it involves the old elven gods. Sera wants the inquisitor to agree with her that it’s total bullshit and what they saw wasn’t real, because how can THAT be real AND the Maker of Andrastian faith both be real? If the inquisitor disagrees and thinks there’s a chance it was real, or even that it’s at least worth exploring, she’s then given another chance when Sera pleads with her to lie about it! Say it was all nonsense so things can go back to normal with them. If the Inquisitor refuses to lie to her, Sera breaks off the relationship and there’s no way to get her back and all the other romances are also locked after this point.

Interestingly (frustratingly) Sera will have this fight with Inquisitors of other races, but she’ll only dump an elven Inquisitor, accusing her of thinking Sera’s not elfy enough and that they don’t fit. I watched the scene and my blood pressure went THROUGH THE ROOF.

Consensus seems to be that Sera is just overwhelmed and eventually comes around, but this whole thing really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I could’ve taken the easy way out and just lied to Sera, but I honestly don’t think Ghilanna would ever do that. First of all, Sera has made a big fuss about the Inquisitor being one of the few people she can trust, so she’d never ever lie to her. Second of all, this is a stupid argument!! Where is my “Lets not fight about this right now.” option???? I’d even take the “It has nothing to do with us” if only it didn’t include the line about it being nonsense! Third of all, how dare you spoil my adorable lesbian romance?????

Anyway, it killed my enjoyment of the romance, and I’m a weenie who can’t even break up with an AI so I restarted from a save point 16 hours prior and replayed the game without romancing her. Maybe someday I’ll do a whole new playthrough with a Qunari or a Dwarf and romance her. The only people I can’t romance with this character are Dorian and Cassandra and I can’t do Sera if I’m a male, so it would be another whole playthrough just for Sera basically. smdh.

Anyway I just wanted to vent.

[puclpodcast]

The du-Rant with Viger Issue #7 “Story Time, or Lack There of”

Welcome to the newest issue of the du-Rant with me, Viger. Haven’t done one of these for a while, but you know what happens when I don’t have enough news to talk about. I get a little testy, and I need to vent that with the only thing that makes sense to me. That’s where the du-Rant comes in.

  Now we know what I do with this series: I pick some aspect of the Pokemon franchise, no matter how small and insignificant it is, and inject some hardcore logic and reasoning into it. This time, I’m going big, and I taking a look at a core part of each and every game that the Pokemon Company has made.

We all know that the main series of Pokemon games are very well tuned and crafted as turn-based strategy games. Each players finely raises the perfect creature to put on a team of six perfectly trained Pokemon with all the perfect IVs, moves, and stats. (Shiny for good measure.) Then they do battle with another trainer who has done the same thing. Mind games, strategy, and a dash of good luck, and a winner emerges. That is Pokemon in a nutshell. But how does a trainer get to this point of grinding out the best Pokemon? What steps go into finding the best creatures to put on your team? Well, there is a first step, and probably the most asinine one for the whole process….

  You have to complete the campaign of that current generation.

  Completely forgettable and the most boring part of any Pokemon game in the eyes of a seasoned trainer, almost every Pokemon campaign is ignored and left on the side of the road as trainers Flare Blitz there way to the post-game grind in order to bring all their previous Pokemon over to the current generation and to begin working on the next ideal VGC team. All the characters, plot, and climax of the story itself are forgotten and discarded, only briefly brought up in the TCG whenever a Trainer Card for that specific part of the story comes up, but then ironically, quickly “discarded”.

  This is a shame if you ask me. As a gamer, I thrive for a good story. I need reason for why I am doing the things that I do, and I need to relate to the character through those actions. Halo, Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, all those games’ stories had me connected. Pokemon’s story has never connected me at all to the character, as my trainer simply stands there smiling as the evil team leader explains their diabolical plot to rule the world. This isn’t engaging when I’ve seen it done at least four times.

But every so often, one game has “Mold Breaker” and does something completely different that its predecessors. For Pokemon, this was the Fifth Generation. For the first time, a Pokemon game had me interested in the story. It introduced Team Plasma, a team not bent on crime and/or ruling the world, but taking a philosophical stance and asking the big question of whether capturing Pokemon is a good thing or not. An actual dilemma was at play. An actual reason existed as to why the evil team was doing the things that it was doing. They weren’t doing it because its “evil”, like a bunch of Saturday morning cartoon villains, they were doing it because they thought it was truly the right thing to do, despite everything that proved it wasn’t right at all. If you ask me, that’s true evil, and that’s why I will always claim Team Plasma to be the most evil team in all of Pokemon.

  However, once Generation Six started, all that depth and complexity to the story of a Pokemon game fell back into the trough of ignorance as Team Flare, fresh out of Commander Cobra’s Academy of Gifted Criminals, took to the stage and became easily forgettable, with a story fit for an early Saturday morning.

  To its credit, Sun and Moon tried something to add depth to the story, mainly with the character development between Lusamine and Lillie. However, with it being too late in the game, along with Hau being…..Hau, I couldn’t stay invested in the story as long as I did with Black and White.

  It is truly sad when you think about it. Each time, a new Pokemon game comes out with a brand new region, characters, and story to show to the player, something that had taken quite some time to make, and that someone put a lot of time, effort, attention, and care into creating, only for it to be tossed aside by a majority of the players as they make their way for the post game grind. This is where I take my stand.

  WE NEED ANOTHER GREAT STORY IN OUR POKEMON GAMES!!!! WE NEED A PLOT TO GET US INVESTED AND A REASON AS TO WHY WE FIGHT THE EVIL TEAM!!! NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE “EVIL”, BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE OPPOSED TO WHAT WE BELIEVE IS RIGHT!!!!

  Let’s not leave the stories to just the Manga and Anime, let’s get the Pokemon games to have a great story too. Just saying.

  And that will do it for me on this end. What do you guys think? Should their be another great story in Pokemon games? Let me know in the comments below. And with that, I see you guys in the next issue!

from The du-Rant with Viger Issue #7 “Story Time, or Lack There of”

[moddersinc]

[section_title title=Classic PC Case Mods]

It is time to start showing off the cases that have entered the Modders Inc Case Mod Contest. As we get more entries in the contest we will add then, so make sure that you bookmark this page and check back often. What we will do is post them into the Division they have entered. This way you can judge what your competition is. I think EVERYONE should enter as it looks like we will be having a few “Custom Entry Prizes” to give away!

  Classic PC Case Mod: consists of any mod that is built from an existing retail PC Case. We do require at least 80% of the original case be used. If we deem that less than 80% of the original case was not used you will we moved to the Scratch-Build style.

My name  James Nickell as this is my computer case mod. About My Case – I built a Resident Evil 2 Remake in the Corsair 570x. Resident Evil was one of my favorite games growing up so when RE2 Remake was announced I started planning a build around it so I could play it on PC. Specs Asus Z390 Gaming H, Intel 9700k, 32gigs Corsair memory, Asus Strix 1080ti.

  [section_title title=Scratch Build PC Case Mods]

Scratch-Build PC Case Mod: consists of any mod built from anything else than a retail PC Case.

Mayhem Modz says Hello everyone this was my first scratch mod. it took a lot of work about 1 year, I started from a black hawk concept it seemed more appropriate, my construction elements were aluminum strips, steel sheets, some recycled parts of other houses, and a lot of plexiglass, I am proud to have made this work of art, all done love without the use of CNC or laser, all school Vecchia, I wanted to show that even if you do not have a CNC or cutting laser if you have a passion you can make a good pc case mod.

  My name is Björn Höjing Burle (BHB-Mods/Deriveh). I’m a Swedish modder and  I’ll be presenting my first custom-loop and my first scratch-build computer. This is my third modded computer since I got into modding as late as 2017. I got the idea to my build when I got home from Dreamhack Winter 2018 in Sweden, my wife wanted an iMac and I had just finished a modding project and look at all the great custom-loops on Dreamhack. Thus the idea to the iPreadator Powder was born. I decided I wanted to do a badass gaming PC, custom cooled on the backside of a 34″ monitor in an open industrial style case/frame.

I spent just over a year completing this build. When I began I basically just had the hardware from my old computer. I didn’t even have a 34″ monitor. My budget was quite strained as well so I some of the time it took went into looking for used parts, thus most of the parts of my build is used and not newly bought. The first part I got was the monitor, I had to do some research of which stands might be able to hold the weight of 25kgs as well as look alright to the industrial look I wanted, thus I chose the Acer X34.

The main plate of which all the components are placed in a 5mm thick aluminum plate at the exact same specifications as my Acer X34P monitor. I had to bring in help from a friend with an engineering company to manage to bend the plate at a 6-degree angle because of the thickness of the plate, I could not do it myself. I then used a jigsaw, hand files, sandpaper, polish, and other handheld tools to get all the shapes and finish done. I also painted the monitor white, ground down the pain of the monitor stand, and brushed it.

  David Engelhardt & Tony Hall have this to say about the case mod they entered. The case inspiration came from the name of the PC Shop I work at, Blue Candle Computers, and the fact that we could not find where anyone had done a Candle computer. The outside is a plastic shell with a spray foam top. The top was shaped and covered with liquid rubber. Then the whole thing was covered with 7 pounds of wax. We did have it QuakeCon 2019,as it was my BYOC PC, but we didn’t think about entering the MOD contest. All of that is mounted inside on a custom Plywood Base.

For the last year, I have kept it on display at my shop and even use it to run a monitor on the front counter as an example of a Custom Computer. For BYOC 2019, the computer was always running, unless we were sleeping. The wax did not melt. In the last year, the wax shell that holds the flame up has bonded with the wax below.

  David Cathey, tell us about your Scratch Built Computer… About My Case: Leaf Me Alone is a scratch build case using walnut and aluminum and has a nature theme. The idea was for a case that was less ‘gamer’ and more furniture piece that could be placed on a table and shown off. Starting with the interior, the tray is aluminum with the motherboard and a vertical GPU bracket on one side and brackets for the PSU and drives on the other. It is finished with a sanded pattern to give it a more wispy, natural look to go match the theme and provide some more visual interest. The main focal point of the interior is the wiring. All the wiring has been sleeved in a green paracord with the 24 pin and GPU power cables going through the tray to create a leaf pattern. The exterior of the case is a clamshell design, with aluminum on one side finished with light green paint and the other side is solid 3/4″ walnut. A leaf motif (walnut leaves to match the wood) was carved into the walnut and then filled with epoxy containing a green metallic flake. To help get some air to the components, vents were cut into the walnut side panel in the shape of leaves to stick to the theme. The walnut is finished with tung oil and then a polyurethane to protect the wood. The exterior halves attach to the tray with aluminum extensions, the top is open to aid cooling, and then the tray sits on a walnut base, finished to match the walnut of the shell. The base includes the power and reset buttons, also made of walnut to blend into the base.

This case is designed to last like good furniture so no major modding was done to the hardware so upgrading in the future would be easy. The case supports ATX and mATX motherboards, standard 2 slot GPUs, a standard ATX PSU, and 3 2.5″ drives, though the GPU, PSU, and drives are on brackets that can be replaced if necessary. The one-piece of hardware modding was fitting the Cooler Master Geminii M4 cooler on to the chip. A new mounting bracket for AM4 had to be created since the Geminii M4 doesn’t support AM4. This was done by replacing a few parts of the cooler with custom aluminum brackets and using a Corsair backplate for mounting.

Dante Mutti is going to tell us about his High Voltage PC Case Mod

About 11 years before I started this mod, I saw a vintage Oscilloscope in a flea market and I immediately fell in love with the design. I purchased one soon after, with the intent to build a mod, and it sat in my garage for over a decade. Fast forward to 2018 and this project finally began to come to life.

The power supply is by far one of my favorite parts of this mod. I purchased an old residential power switch housing at an estate sale with the intent of using it as the power supply shroud for my mod. Inside, it will house an EVGA SFX 650W Power Supply. The holes were cut for the vent, power switch, and the fan intake. Rubber u-channel molding was used to make the edges look cleaner and more professional. I made Glow-In-The-Dark paint by mixing Matte Medium with Glow Pigment Powder. I then painted the inside of the main case with it, so that the UV lighting inside the case would charge up the glow particles in the paint, and when you turn off the lights or the PC, the inside of the case would remain glowing.

On the side of the case, I added a “Big Red Button” that serves as the Power Button for the PC. I also added 2 industrial On/Off switches that control the lighting. The left toggle switch turns on and off the white interior light of the power gauge. The right toggle switch turns on and off the UV lighting inside the case. The front of the Oscilloscope had a red light that turned on when you powered on the scope. I wanted to retain this functionality and have the Oscilloscope’s Power Light be the Computer’s Power Light as well, which I achieved by wiring an LED to this location from the motherboard’s power light header.

[section_title title=id/Bethesda Themed PC Case Mods]

id/Bethesda Themed PC Case Mod: consists of any mod style (classic or scratch) but must be themed about id Software/Bethesda or any of their games (old, current, or upcoming).

My name is Rob Wilson and my case is themed after the Khajiit, the race of cat-people in The Elder Scrolls Online. Its most noticeable feature is that it is covered in faux snow leopard fur. The front panel is 3D printed and includes fan grills made from the Khajiit emblem. The top panel is also 3D printed and includes a fan grill made from a Khajiit shield. Both panels are held on by magnets, which allow them to be easily removed for fan cleaning or other maintenance. The inside of the case is hand-painted and then hand glazed with iridescence to make it shimmer like a moonstone, the Khajiit crafting style material. The computer is cooled by a custom loop that is filled with a clear liquid similar in appearance to the moon sugar drinks often enjoyed by the Khajiit. The custom loop includes a magnetic 3D printed housing which allows the reservoir to mount horizontally, and permits easy installation or removal for maintaining the loop. All 3D printing is my own design and fabrication

QuakeCon at Home PC Case Mods It is time to start showing off the cases that have entered the Modders Inc Case Mod Contest.